


We Are Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On (or, 4 times Ryder kissed Liam, and the one time he kissed her)

by KerriLovegood



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Alec Ryder can fight me, Deaf Character, F/M, lots of friendship - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2018-11-17 07:38:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 34,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11271036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KerriLovegood/pseuds/KerriLovegood
Summary: From sunsets to movie nights, the language of love that Ryder and Liam learn is laughter. Told in vignettes, but in a linear fashion to show the evolution of their relationship and how a relationship can be just as foreign to them as another galaxy. But they are eager to explore it.





	1. Eos

**Author's Note:**

> This work features my own Ryder, Aphelia, though she is often just called "Ryder" or "Pathfinder." She is deaf in one ear with a burn scar across her face due to a childhood accident, therefore there are various references to her being hard of hearing.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

The new outpost on Eos was a series of shuttles landing, kicking up dust in anxious flurries. The man who was going to be mayor and Addison both informed her it would be named “Prodromos.” She shrugged. “Sounds Greek,” she told Bradley. To Addison, she said “Sounds poetic.” The woman had glared at her,looking  torn about whether to scold her or not in the wake of their first victory. In the end, she huffed and stomped away to supervise the unloading of the most recent shuttle.

Person after excited person flooded out over the next few hours, nearly dropping their building materials to breathe the now-breathable air. Then, they wanted to shake her hand, get a look at her, see the person they swore they owed this chance to. Each time, she nodded, often not hearing half of what they were saying though she strained to, and  reminded them it was the effort of her team and the Initiative at large. She wanted to pull her helmet back on, attempt anonymity and just drive. But the helmet was her father’s, “Ryder” etched into the side, with the unsaid knowledge that “Alec” belonged before it. 

She needed her own damn helmet. First thing she was buying on the Nexus. 

Still, she slammed it back on, felt it click into place and then pressurize. A couple moments of delay, and then she was breathing filtered air again. 

The Basin was steep-walled closest to the establishing settlement, and opened up in the direction of the setting sun. There were layers upon layers of striations in the rock, colored a full palette of browns and reds up the walls, as if letting you choose one you fancied. Small, gnarly plants grew impossibly out of the cracks, not caring that everything seemed to declare that they shouldn’t be there.  _ That _ was poetic. 

When they were sixteen, she and Scott had gone to the Grand Canyon on Earth, having seen it in a vid as children and swearing to go as soon as possible. Alec had been partial to the cold thin air and pine smell of the Sierra Nevadas, so that was one of the only places they had visited on the homeworld throughout their childhood. While they loved it, they also wanted to see more, do more. At the Grand Canyon, they had rappelled down the side (most likely illegally, they hadn’t checked). Between insults, she had marveled at her brother about the hundreds of millions of years of history that these stones had written on them. 

For all she knew, Eos hadn’t had billions of years. Maybe it was still a fledgling, but whatever beings built those vaults sped it through eons of evolution. Maybe they saw planets as their sandboxes; trash one and move on. But then...where were they? Did Heleus bore them? Or were they truly gone like the Protheans had been?

She walked over to the cliff-like walls, placed her hand on the uneven surface, a reddish ledge jutting out. Turning back to look at the settlement, she saw that no one was watching her. She rolled her shoulders. Exhaled. 

“SAM,” she said. “Let’s go for a climb.”

Before the AI had time to respond, she triggered her jump jets, rocketing upwards. Letting out a whoop, she felt herself arc slightly as she lost momentum about ten feet up, the planet’s gravity seeming to pull on her stronger since the vaults were reset. As she started to fall again, stomach lurching, she grabbed a another ledge. It started crumbling beneath her gloves, but she pushed herself upwards as hard and fast as she could before activating the jump jets. Catapulting through the air, the cliff flew past her until she could see the plain above it. Attempting to stabilize herself with her biotics, she flew a few feet more horizontally, flipping awkwardly, before plummeting back down again and landing in the dust with a dull  _ thump.  _

“Pathfinder, neither your sentinel nor your vanguard profiles are activated. Biotic usage is limited at this time.”

“Yeah, thanks, SAM.” _ Thanks Dad,  _ she added to herself,  _ For explaining your experiments.  _

There was a pause. She huffed and looked at her legs spread out comically, hands toying with the sand between them. And she laughed: at herself, at her father, at Andromeda, at the absurdity of everything that had happened. 

After a moment, she stood up and brushed herself off. The sky submerged in deeper and deeper blues that bled into purple. Turning around, she sharply inhaled at the sun cradled in the dip at the other end of the basin. The last rays of light painted a picture that looked like the colors of spring rather than fire; Eos was not a desperate world anymore. 

She walked to the edge of the cliffside and sat down, pushing her legs out from under her to dangle over the edge. Her heel hit the rocks a few times as her legs swung wide, knocking pebbles down beneath her. 

“I almost forgot what the color pink looks like, SAM,” she remarked, staring out towards the horizon.

“There is no indication of damage to your memory. If this persists, I recommend you consult Doctor T'Perro.”

“You’re terrible.”

The sun sunk lower very slowly, biding its time. The activity at Prodromos did not stop or lag at any point, and she guessed they would work well into the night and the following day. No amount of fatigue would prevent them from seizing this chance.  Already, the basic structure of one compound was rising up far below her.

She watched for a long time in complete silence, body groaning from the exertion of the past few days. Beneath her armor was a layer of sweat, some of it absorbed by the fabric, and she was sure was starting to smell. She was dimly aware of her hunger and a rising headache, but pushed it out of her focus. 

After a while, she noticed a figure, greyish while juxtaposed against the sunset, walking towards her across the top of the basin.  They waved. She started, but they motioned for her to keep sitting. As they came closer, the blue and white of the Initiative uniform was distinguishable, as well as the sturdy shoulders and broad chest of Liam.  

She waved faintly, and he stopped beside her. “Mind if I join you, Pathfinder?” His voice rang loud and clear in her helmet -- their comms were still open. 

“I don’t know. You might need to get your own cliffside to brood over, Kosta.” 

He shrugged. “Don’t know if I’ll have time to before the sun sets, and that would ruin the whole look, wouldn’t it?”

She tapped the earth to her left side so she could hear him better without the comms. He sat down clumsily, legs and body larger than hers, and then he was rocking his own feet beside hers.

There was a moment of silence before she said abruptly, “I was born on the Citadel. Believe it or not, they had better things to do on the Presidium than program the fake sky to have a sunset. When I was stationed planetside in the Milky Way, I...never looked.” 

“God, that’s a cliché,” Liam snorted. “No one ever looks. People have probably seen more sunsets in old vids than in real life. Me included. Maybe that’s the point.”

“The Initiative brings us back to a place where we either watch sunsets, or forget why we’re here.”

“You saying you almost forgot?”

“Nah,” she said. “And I can’t imagine I ever could.”

There was clicking noise beside her. She turned to see Liam take off his helmet and push back his headpiece, freeing his wiry hair. His face was shiny with sweat, and the now-gentle winds of Eos blew his hair slightly. He breathed deeply. “I almost forgot. Those twenty seconds you were dead, I thought, what do we do with three Ryders down?”

“You and Cora know what you’re doing. You’d have made it.”

He shrugged. “The good thing is though, we don’t have to find that out. ‘Cause you’ve proven you’re not going anywhere.”

She smiled. “Hell no.”

“Do you mind if I ask what it was like? When you...When the transfer happened?”

It was her turn to shrug. “A really bad headache.”

He looked at her expectantly for an elaboration, but she said no more.

“Anyway,” he said. “Sunsets in London weren’t spectacular, either. Not that I remember, anyway. But the days always felt longer in the summer, because the sun would always set so late.”

“I’ve never been to London,” she said. “Well. Guess I’ll never go now.”

He laughed slightly. “I keep having those little realizations over and over, too. I’ll never see the Tower Bridge again, never gonna walk through Regent's Park. All that touristy bullshit. But I miss all those little places, too.” 

“I miss those second-hand shops on the wards of the Citadel. Never know where or who the owners got their junk from, but I knew better than to ask.” She sighed. “Nothing here really has sentimentality or a known history attached to it yet. We get to make that.” She looked back out towards the setting sun where the purple had overtaken most of the sky. Reaching up, she disconnected her helmet, hearing the hiss of it depressurize, and breathed in the air of a planet that was remaking itself.

Pushing back her head covering, her dark hair was limp, sweat-soaked, and clung to her scalp and neck. Running a hand through her hair, she felt the wind run cold against the back of her neck. “I’m gonna need about ten showers later,” she remarked. “But I think that can wait for making history. And memories.” They smiled gently at each other. He was much taller than her, so she leaned her head against his arm.

“You know, ‘Eos’ was the Greek god of the sunrise.” She yawned. “Lots of old poetry described her as having 'rosy fingers' as she let the sun out for each day. Or maybe she just announced it. It's fuzzy. But she was all the pinks of roses up in the sky, like those ones Cora is growing.”

“Hmm,” he said. “Didn’t know that. Or that you were into the classics so much.”

“Dad was a romantic, believe it or not. I just went a little further back. And let me tell you, you haven’t _ lived _ unless you’ve seen the Elcor production of the Iliad.”

She didn’t hear his laugh so much as feel it. “I saw Hamlet. The whole talking to the skull bit? Priceless.”

She giggled in response. “Wonder if the Nexus movie libraries have it.”

“Please, I’ve got it in my own personal library.”

She looked up at him, incredulous. “Really?”

He smiled, looking slightly bashful in the waning light. “I’ve got the whole Elcor Shakespeare collection.”

She practically shrieked with laughter. Leaning forward, she kissed him on the cheek, and continued laughing. He froze and looked down at his feet, grinning. 

“Sorry I doubted you,” she said, still laughing. Then, she dropped her voice down an octave and spoke in a monotone: “Seriously: To be or not to be?” 

“No, no, the adjective is completely different.” He nudged her playfully. “Contemplating death: To be or not to be? Vindictive: That is the question.”

She continued laughing, and nudged him back. They swayed. “Too much emotion for an Elcor.”

“Yeah, alright.”

She cleared her throat, and they fell into a slightly stiff silence. The light was now almost entirely gone, and everything was layers of shadows. Beneath them, lights were already shining up in the basin, harsh and yellowish. It just barely reached them, casting their faces in odd shadows. A couple minutes passed. She thought she heard Addison yelling about a late shipment. She closed her eyes.

“Hey, question, Pathfinder,” Liam said after a while.

“Hmm?”

“That goddess of the dawn, Eos, is it in her job description to bring the sunset, too?”

“Yeah - No. No.” She thought about it for a moment, trying to remember the old volumes she had read. “I think that’s what made her so unique, was that no other part of the day had a god or goddess or titan or what have you.”

“Huh.” A pause. She could practically hear him smile. “Guess we’ll have to name one. ‘Goddess of the Andromeda sunsets.’”

“Prodromos?” She suggested.

“I’m thinking...Ryder?” 

She nudged him again, playfully pushing his face away from her. “Stop it. God, you’re full of shit.”

“It makes sense though, doesn’t it? Like sunrises are supposed to mean beginnings, not sunsets, and everything about Andromeda feels like it’s supposed to be an ending, and everything is just opposite of what we should expect. You’re not what anyone expects.”

“I half understood you, and I hope that’s a compliment.”

“It is,” he said confidently. “Nobody is expecting a shot at a beginning, ‘cause it’s so dark out, but you walk into the dark and bring one out anyway.”

“Well…” She started, and as his words sunk in more, she knew less and less of what to say. She looked down at the bustling settlement. “You’re lucky I’m not Addison. That sounds like  _ goddamned poetry. _ ”

She leaned against him again, eyes starting to droop shut. She blinked furiously to stay awake. “Thanks,” she murmured. 

He laughed again, warmly. “It’s a good life, Pathfinder.”

“That it is.”


	2. Signs and Siblings

“Pathfinder!”

The sound tore her away from her own musings, shoving her back into the artificial sunlight of the Nexus Docking Bay. Blinking a few times, she turned around, left and then right, not sure where to look. 

“Pathfinder!” 

At that, she turned, comedically, in a full circle, bumping into a Salarian who was too busy staring at her datapad to wait for any sort of apology. Scanning the crowd for a familiar face, she took a few steps toward the labs before feeling a hand on her  right shoulder. Jumping slightly, she turned to her right and followed the arm all the way up to the smirking face of Liam. She felt herself smile slightly.

An automated voice came over the level’s intercom, asking for a mother to a lost human boy near customs. A group of scientists walked by a few feet away, mentioning something about iron levels somewhere (maybe Aya?). The noise was buzzing around her, pressing in on her good ear, and - Liam was saying something? His head tilted the smallest amount, leaning by her right ear, and then he looked at her expectantly. He had asked something. 

“Uhhh…”  Gesturing vaguely towards her ear, she shrugged.

“OH,” he mouthed, hitting himself on the forehead. Then, he walked to her other side, voice coming into sharper focus. “Left ear’s the good one?” 

“Correct.”

“Right, okay.”  
“No, left,” she said lamely, grinning at him as he groaned and rolled his eyes.

“God, that’s terrible. Why does anyone let you talk in vids? Anyway, somewhere quieter?” He walked over towards the labs, glancing over his shoulder to check that she was following him. He led her into a hallway where the sound was muted and their breathing amplified. She held her arms behind her back, wringing her hands and rocking slowly on the balls of her feet.

“What’s going on?”

“Not a big deal. And I’m not saying that to dismiss it because it  _ actually _ is a big deal. Just checking up on you, really.” Before she could ask what he means, he said “Going to the Hyperion Medical Bay, yeah?” 

She drew back slightly, brows knitting together in confusion. “Stalking me?”

He shrugged. “You visit Scott first thing whenever we get back to the Nexus. Or, you did last time. Thought it might be a pattern. Didn’t think it was a secret; nothin’ to be ashamed of. If I had family here, it would be the first thing I’d do. Actually, it would be hard to get back on the Tempest at all.”

“Well, you boarded the Hyperion to Andromeda,” she pointed out.

He chuckled halfheartedly. “...Fair enough, Pathfinder.”

There was an awkward silence and about a foot between them. She glanced around as a door to her left opened, and an asari scientist nodded at them as she walked in an arc around them and exited. After watching the doctor leave, she turned back to Liam, contemplating this space between them.

“You’re more than a little confusing,” she said bluntly.

This time when he laughed, he did so fully. “I’ve heard that one before.” He recovered quickly. “This is all a roundabout way of asking if you’d like company this time.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Company being me, obviously.”

“This part of your crisis response training?”

“Nah. I’m not a shrink, if that’s what you’re asking. I just care.” She felt herself smile involuntarily. “The others do, too,” he continued. “They’re all just too proud in their own ways, or think that you are.”

“Right,” she said, feeling suddenly unsure. She wondered if the rest of the crew had sat around and talked about her mental state, surprised at herself that she hadn’t considered it before. Looking down at her feet, she added, “Okay.” Another pause as she chewed on her lip in indecision. Then, she looked up at him, brown eyes gentle and pleading. She remembered waking up after SAM had transferred into her mind, skull feeling as if it would split, and he was hunched over, waiting, the uneven light of the room highlighting the bags under his eyes. Her mind was scrambled, lungs still screaming as if she was slowly, eternally choking, and yet he was there. 

“You know…” she said, “when I woke up in SAM node that first day after...after Habitat Seven and...everything, I was really glad to see you there.”

The corners of Liam’s mouth turned upwards. “Don’t think anyone should go through something like that and have no one to wake up to.”

“Even a virtual stranger, though? I mean, I didn’t even know your name.”

“Wait, what?” He jerked back slightly in surprise. “We _ introduced _ ourselves! In the shuttle!”

“A lot was happening that day,” She replied defensively, cracking a nervous smile.

“Oho, that’s  _ rich.  _ I can’t-”

“I mean, there was a lot of static and-”

_“_ So, when did you actually-”

“Anyway, I know your name now,” she said quickly, cutting him off. A blush rose in her cheeks as she realized how loud they had been talking. They both breathed deeply, looking at the other in confusion, trying to figure out their game. Liam really did seem to just care, but she did not know how to calmly accept kindness. It left her squirming, even as he tried to remove any possible discomfort with banter. 

Making a sudden decision, she reached up and looped her arm in his. It was an awkward connection, as he was tall enough he could rest his chin on the top of her head, but she simply grinned.  “As your commanding officer,  _ Liam Kosta _ , I command you to follow me to the tram. Scott will be mad if we’re late.” At that, she dragged him towards the door as he said with a forced enthusiasm, “Of course, Pathfinder.”

The trams rode smoothly, having improved greatly since that dark first day on the Nexus. A pleasant-sounding VI now spoke to them over at regular intervals over the intercoms. Only one other person, boarded the tram; a rather muscular woman, she hummed to herself in the seat across from them. Though they were sitting in silence, Liam had not removed his arm from hers.

“Question, Kosta,” she said after a while.

“Hmm?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she began.

“Ooh. That’s never a good sentence starter.”

“Do you know my name?”

“Aphelia, why wouldn’t I?”

“...Okay, you do.”

“Can’t all be as gifted as you, Pathfinder,” he said, elbowing her teasingly.

“See! You’re always calling me Pathfinder. It’s rarely even ‘Ryder’ with you, but you call everyone else by their first name. And it’s not like we’re a military operation.”

“Didn’t you just pull rank on me about five minutes ago?” He laughed incredulously. “Anyway,  you’re the Pathfinder. Even if I were to call everyone by title, not everyone’s is as badass as yours. Not gonna ring up Gil sayin’ ‘Hey, engineer.’ Like you said, it’s not a military operation. Don’t really have ranks, only titles. Just doesn’t work. But ‘Pathfinder’ suits you.”

“And ‘Aphelia’ doesn’t?” she asked. The tram started to break gradually, the track smoothed out enough now that they only slightly swayed in their seats. 

“It does, it’s just...hard to explain. Want me to stop?”

“Nah,” she said dismissively. “I was just wondering.”

“Covering your own ass was what you were doing.” She laughed.

Once the tram completely slowed down, the VI intoned, “Ark Hyperion. Cryo Bay.” The words also flashed in large, block letters on the central terminal, and a small dot on the virtual map of the station blinked to indicate their location.

Liam removed his arm from hers and stood up, stretching his arms out and yawning. Then, he offered her his hand. “A question for you, Pathfinder: When  _ did _ you learn my name?”

She stared at his hand in front of her for a moment before taking it and hopping up to her feet. Dropping his hand, she walked out the door and blinked in the bright lights of the ship, busier than it had ever been. “The answer isn’t nearly as exciting as you might hope.”

“I’m listening.”

Liam took large strides when he walked, unconscious of it as she took extra steps to keep up. “Right after you walked out of SAM node. I paused a minute, pretending I needed to get my bearings. Turned to SAM, said, ‘who is that guy, again?’”

“Good thing SAM’s sense of humor isn’t fully developed or he’d have given you the wrong name.”

“Yeah, Dad wasn’t known for his sense of humor. Maybe if Scott had a hand in creating him. Speaking of…” She nodded as they passed a technician, who looked up from an engineer she was speaking with to salute. The engineer looked up, bun of unruly blonde hair bobbing slightly as she went into a rigid salute as well. 

“Looks like you’ve got some admirers,” Liam muttered, waving at the others.

“Oh, please stop,” Aphelia muttered under her breath. Grabbing Liam’s arm, she quickened her pace down the hallway, dragging him behind her. Finally slipping through the doors to the Cryo Bay, she released Liam and dragged her hand through her hair nervously. The spacious room contained less than a dozen people; besides Scott, there was just one other patient and another man who was just waking up from cryo. He was leaning back on a pile of three pillows (with a nurse bringing him a fourth) and scrunching his mouth together as if he tasted something rotten. 

“Bit tense there,” Liam remarked, rubbing his arm. 

“Sorry - just didn’t want to draw a crowd. Someone has to disagree with how we made First Contact, and will be glad to let me know.”

“Wouldn’t blame yourself for that, people just want to start something. It’s bullshit, but it makes them feel like they have control over something.” He looked up and around. “Anyway…”

“Scott,” she said, walking purposely along the aisle to the bedside about midway down. The empty beds on either side of him were crisply made; no one had been in them for a while. Standing at the foot of his bed, she waited for Liam to catch up.

“Hey, man,” he said, waving slightly again at the bed below him. Scott didn’t stir, looking as untroubled as he somehow always managed to be when he slept. His thick black hair (so like her own) looked like it had grown slightly, reaching closer and closer to his eyes as it flopped down across his forehead. He was paler than she had ever known him to be, losing his color from the lack of sun.

Unconsciously, she waved, then drew her dominant hand into a fist with her thumb across her second and third fingers. Then, hand still in a fist, she drew it closer to the outstretched palm of her other hand, as if emphasizing the miniscule size of an unknown object. She saw Liam look at her curiously, but before she could think much of it, Harry Carlyle was behind them, looking up from the datapad his hand seemed to be glued to.

“It’s good to see you, as always,” he said, voice gentle. “And Liam.”

She didn’t have to turn to greet the man. “Dr. Carlyle, any developments?”

“I wish there were. However, Scott’s still stable. His condition hasn’t improved or worsened since you were last here. ”

She looked down at the polished floor, scudding her boot along the grey tiles. She knew that the Doctor would email her if anything significant had happened. She knew that last time she had stopped by as well. And the time before that. Yet she still asked, and now she was angry at herself for expecting anything new. So, all she did was nod, and refuse to look up as she swallowed the hope back down. She felt Liam’s hand on her shoulder, thumb rubbing circles across her back.

“Yeah, thought so.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt more useless in all my years of medicine.”

At that, she looked up and smiled. “I’m glad Andromeda could prove you right as the adventure of a lifetime.”

Dr. Carlyle rolled his eyes, caught between exhaustion and amusement. Seeing him now, he seemed to have more grey in his hair than when they first arrived. “Tell me about it. You leave for, what, two weeks, and come back saying you’ve met a new race?”

She felt her spirits rising again, heart beating faster at the memory of stepping out of the Tempest and onto a world no human ever had before, being pointed at with guns no human had ever faced before. “It’s amazing. The Angara are...amazing. From what I know so far.”

“Bonus points that they ask questions before shooting us. Almost forgot what diplomacy felt like,” Liam said cheekily.

“And they’re still humanoid! A galaxy removed, and evolution still took them down similar paths.” Aphelia was beaming, voice speeding up in her excitement. “Not even the Hanar can say that. And Heleus is one tiny cluster. There’s no saying what else is out there.” 

The Doctor looked impressed, slightly taken aback at her enthusiasm. Liam was nodding. There was a nod as she grounded herself again, clearing her throat. Then, she looked pointedly at the Doctor. “I’ve been thinking about making audio logs for Scott. Just telling him what I’ve been up to, and talking to him, you know. I spoke with Dr. Lexi about it, and she thinks it might be beneficial to both of us. If I were to send them your way, would you be able to play them for him?”

The Doctor considered. “I could set something up. I’m no longer your primary physician, but as for your brother...Hearing your voice regularly might stimulate something in his subconscious, encourage him to wake up sooner. Just...be careful with what you tell him?”

There was a wave of shame as she remembered Scott asking in that innocent, eager voice of his, “ _ Is Dad there? _ ” She had stared at him for a minute, leaving him to the silence of his own mind before deciding on the truth.

“He won’t be able to ask questions this time,” she said shortly. 

“Alright.” He chuckled. “Don’t know why I think you two could ever keep something from each other to begin with. But may I suggest possibly referring to shared memories the two of you have in these logs? It may help if we deliberately provoke old - and preferably positive - memories.”

“I can definitely do that, Doc.”

“Thanks. I’ll leave you two alone with Scott for a few minutes then. And keep up the good work out there, kiddo.”

“All in a day’s work. Or...sleep cycle’s worth?” She looked at Liam, shrugging. He mirrored the gesture.

“Want me to get you a chair?”

She nodded. “Thanks.” Walking around Scott’s bed, she stood by his head. She looked over the gentle slope to the bridge of his nose, slightly crooked from when it had broken years before. 

_ (She had laughed for weeks at the bulky bandage he had gotten on his nose once the swelling finally went down, making his already higher pitched voice downright comical. He joked that she might finally be the better looking twin. “Don’t I nose it?” she had replied, deadpan.) _

Liam placed a chair behind her legs, and she sat down, pulling it forward as he sat beside her.

“Liam Kosta, this is my  _ much _ younger brother, Liwei. Also called Scott. Scott, Liam.”

“Good to meet you. Gotta wake up soon so you can tell me all the embarrassing stories about Aphelia here.” 

“Don’t I embarrass myself enough on the daily? ...Cycle-ly?” She retorted.

He laughed. “Maybe. But I know I’m missing some of the best stories.”

“Yeah, I’m never letting the two of you meet.”

“So I  _ am _ onto something.”

She rolled her eyes. “Pretty sure the crew of the Tempest has more stories on you already than my brother has on me from 22 years.” She considered. “Except most of the time you don’t even realize that you should be embarrassed.”

She turned back to the prone figure of her brother. “Scott, you can never meet Liam because he will commission you to craft him armor so he can strip with an alien.”

“Don’t let your sister make you doubt the awkward steps towards diplomacy, Scott. Trading armor was definitely a necessity for the furthering of cultural knowledge.”

“‘Or something’” she mocked, shaking her head. “But, assuming you’ve heard all of this, we did make contact with an alien species. Our real first contact in Andromeda, other than the Kett. I’m trying to gain their trust currently. We have to all be good enough for it.”

“They’ve definitely had a rough go of it,” Liam agreed. “Decades of fighting the Kett. Can’t even imagine what that does to a species.”

“It’s funny. With everything we planned for in Andromeda, we never considered the threat of other outsiders. We thought  _ we _ would be the most foreign presence in the system. Is that arrogance?” She shrugged. “We have to prove that we’re here to help the Angara, so after this Nexus trip we are headed to a planet called Havarl, and from everything I’ve heard, you would love it, Scott. It’s a world that’s just one giant overrun jungle.”

She turned to Liam. “Scott’s a bit of an amateur horticulturist.”

SAM visualized in his holo of suspended blue crystals at the terminal beside Scott’s bedside. “According to Hyperion logs, among your brother’s personal belongings from his designated storage locker are various seeds to Milky Way plant species. the majority of which are not edible.”

“You’re kidding!” She said excitedly. “I didn’t know what he took. That’s…” She searched for the words, looking at the projection of the far wall of Jien Garson’s phantom smile and flourishing plant species. “They’re not even practical, just for show. Wow.” She smiled at her brother. “And they’re still there, SAM? No one’s tampered with  or taken them?”

“Yes, Pathfinder. No one in the Initiative is allowed to access the personal belongings of another member, unless they have an override issues from the Nexus Director or the Captain of their assigned ark. If you desired, you would likely be able to acquire this easily from either Director Tann or Captain Dunn.”

“No, SAM,” she said, still looking at Scott. “I think I’ll let you plant them once you’re here, you sentimental bastard.”

Liam sounded confused. “All that interest, and he didn’t join the Initiative as a  _ scientist _ ?”

“Well, when your father was one of the first N7 agents, there’s a bit of a pressure to also be combat trained. He trained us himself.”

“Man, I had always thought you were a family of super-soldiers.”

“In a way, we might be. Super soldiers plus the crazy scientist, I guess.” She shrugged, cracking a smile. Then, she tapped her temple, indicating the implant beneath her skull. “Right, SAM?”

“Correct, Pathfinder.” 

“Glad your humor seems to be advancing,” she nodded approvingly. Then, to Liam, she added, “You decide if it’s the crazy  _ evil _ scientist or not.”

He laughed. “Definitely not.” He looked at her intently. “I’m still stuck on it, though. I never felt forced by my parents to be any one thing. Just can’t imagine it.”

She shook her head. “It’s not like he was actively forcing us to live up to his name and join the Alliance. It was more of something unsaid. You knew my Dad and his iron will. He has- “ she stopped suddenly. “...had, a lot of trouble seeing any other perspective once his mind was set. And I think instead of trying to understand us, he just kept his distance.” 

She looked at the prone form of her brother again. He moved his jaw slightly in his sleep, as though chewing. He had the same jawline as their father, the same strong chin -- it was striking at this angle. She wondered, for a moment, if this is what Alec had looked like, dead on the ground of Habitat 7. She had lost consciousness before she could see anything but the same calculating stare in his eyes, and it was likely that the planet had torn his body apart like it was no different than the soil.

And now here she was, roaming across a galaxy in the hope that some random sensation will trigger one of his over-complicated, encrypted memories that led her down a scavenger hunt through his dead labyrinth of a mind. 

The lights of the Med Bay felt too bright. It felt like that man on the bed across the way was staring. It felt like everyone was listening to her. She leaned forward, rubbed her face with her hands, stemming any tears then and there. “I have no idea who the  _ fuck _ he thinks he was.”

Liam’s hand was on her back, then, moving up and down in wide circles. He cleared his throat. “There’s, uh, something Elcor Hamlet says. About how a man’s life is too short to count. Can’t remember the words, but I promise Shakespeare says it better.”

SAM clicked on again. “The line Liam refers to is from Act 5, Scene 2. ‘And a man’s life’s no more than to say ‘one.’’”

“That’s the one!” Liam said. “Thanks, SAM.”

“You are welcome, Mr. Kosta.”

“Point is, life is short - If you’re a human, anyway - and Elcor Hamlet was torn up about his Elcor Dad, too. We can’t bring justice for the shit that happens to people, and sometimes we don’t even know what that justice looks like. Maybe actually experiencing his memories will make him make more sense to you. And, if he doesn’t…” He glanced at Scott, and then back at her, a smile in the warm brown of his eyes.

“What?” She asked, slightly flustered at the sincerity of his gaze.

“Jaal told me the Angara believe that each generation is blessed to be better than what came before. It’s about reincarnation, but I, uh…” He couldn’t hold back, grinning broadly as he said, “I think you’re both an example of that.” 

“You really think so?” She asked, very quietly.

He nodded. “I do, yeah. No offense to the old man.”

“He died for me,” she said.

“I know, just…” he trailed off, not seeming to be able to find the words. His gaze trailed away, looking to the ground, and she realized something.

“I’m going to have to tell Scott, aren’t I?”

“What?”

“When SAM and I made contact with Scott, and told him...you know, everything, I just old him that there was an accident with Dad.”

“Which is true.”

“Yeah, but...When he wakes up, I’m going to have to tell him Dad died saving my life.” She started breathing rapidly, as if she had to push that sentence and thought out of her chest. It was a truth she was choking on. She looked back at Scott.

“And if he can hear me right now, then he does know. Do you think he can hear me?”

“Hey, hey,” Liam placed both hands on her shoulders, steadying her. He loosened the scarf around her neck. “Breathe.”

She did. She counted her inhales, pacing herself and making sure she didn’t cheap out. Nodding at him after a few seconds, she turned to Scott.

“If he can hear, maybe I should tell him now.” 

“Maybe. Your call.”

“You might think this is all a dream, Scott,” she began. “And it’s definitely against Doctor’s orders. But you know how I told you Habitat 7 was falling apart? The air was toxic. And after we think we stabilized the place, there was an explosion that sent us both flying back. We fell, and...my helmet shattered.”

She looked at Liam. He nodded. She breathed deeply again, and remembered seeing the light from her father’s suit through the swirling fog like some ancient march, mighty and foretold. “The glass was busted, so wide no omni tool could fix it. I was choking with every breath, and then, Dad was there. He didn’t even hesitate, Scott. He took off his helmet. He put it on me. And...I still lost consciousness. I didn’t even...see him. And it was for me.”

“Cora got to him right after he passed out,” Liam added quietly. “I couldn’t see anyone, was just focused on locating the shuttle.”

_ So he died alone. _

“Hmm,”  was all she said. “So now you know, Scott, and I really hope you can hear me because I do not want to repeat this when you’re awake.”

She stood up abruptly, the chair skidding noisily as it pushed out behind her. Scott stirred slightly at the noise, but moved no more. Liam seemed to get the message and stood up too, moving both of their chairs out of the way. He took her arm again, and she glanced at him, surprised.

They nodded at Dr. Carlyle on their way out. The doctor watched her go, raising a flat hand to his face, placed his fingers against his mouth and moved it away and down. She shook her head and pointedly repeated the gesture at him. 

As they slipped out the door and up the stairs to the tram again, Liam asked, “That was sign language, right?”

“Oh - yeah,” she said, having not thought about it. “It means -”

“‘Thank you, I think,’” he said, nodding, as he summoned the tram. When she looked at him curiously, he replied, “I only know the basics, you know, ‘please,’ ‘thank you,’ ‘more,’ the alphabet. The stuff they teach you in primary school. Freshened up in HUS-T1 to be able to communicate with as many people as possible in emergency situations. When all else fails, you can spell things out. Still. Wish I knew more.”

“It’s a useful skill to have. You can talk across a room, or about people while you’re right in front of them. Or, you know, if you’re like me and your ears don’t work.” She smirked.

“There was another sign you did, when we first got to the Med Bay,” Liam said. “It looked like the letter ‘a’ or maybe ‘s,’ and then something...more?”

She considered for a moment, trying to recall. “Oh,” she said after a few moments. “Yeah, yeah I forgot. It’s Scott’s personal name, if you know about that.”

He shook his head. 

“It’s an alternative to spelling out a person’s name every single time. Once you know them, you have a sign for them that distinguishes them from every other person with that name.” She held out her hands again, one in a fist, and the other with a flat palm, and drew them together quickly, but not enough so they touched. “I would never call another Scott that. It’s uh, the letter ‘s’ and the sign for ‘small,’ because he’s my little brother by three minutes and I’ve never let him forget.” She smirked. “I’m even taller than him.”

“Woah, didn’t know it was possible for you to be _ taller _ than someone,” he teased. 

She shoved him playfully. “God, I hate you,” she said, grinning. 

They were both still laughing as the tram arrived, but it seemed to pull her back to reality and how somber she had been minutes before. They stood back from the doors, letting the passengers exit, all too enthralled in their datapads to look up. A few of them bumped into each other and still did not look up, muttering quickly under their breath and chugging thermoses full of some unknown liquid.

At the console inside the tram, she selected Operations, telling Liam “I have to go meet with Tann and Addison soon to discuss the Angara.” She rolled her eyes, “Should be fun.” 

He grimaced. “I do not envy you at all.” Punching in a secondary destination he sat down on the seat closest to the terminal, sighing. “Think I'll hit up Vortex. If you want to meet me there afterwards, first round’s on me.” 

She sat beside him, drawing her jacket tighter around her, head still swimming with everything they had talked about in the Med Bay. The tram swayed to life, and she looked at the man beside her. He smelled like something warm she couldn’t quite identify, and that awful couch he still kept at the back of the ship. His face looked scratchy with stubble, but he looked as if he had not slept much since Eos with that hyperactive mind of his. Her mind raced around the welcoming mystery of this man. She wanted to ask,  _ who are you, Liam Kosta?  _ But that felt too simplistic.

What captivated her was that she felt too comfortable around this man in too short an amount of time. 

It wasn’t that she considered herself a person free of attachments; she was quite the opposite. You didn’t have to dig and train for hours and hours to gain her loyalty, because she was already too trusting. But Liam felt like all the good things of home and the Milky Way that she was supposed to hold close but hadn’t cared to until now. And she had never even known him in the Milky Way.

Yet here they were, side by side, looking at each other and saying nothing.

Raising her right hand to her lips, she repeated the gesture she had made to the Doctor. 

He chuckled slightly, and she could feel his breath against her skin. “What are you thanking me for?” 

“You know. Coming along, being good company.”

He smiled. “Glad you think I am.”

“Unfortunately,” she replied wryly. She closed her eyes for a few moments, feeling the slight hum of the tram beneath her. 

“Hey,” he said, “What is your personal name in sign language?”

“It’s actually almost the opposite of Scott’s,” she said, opening her eyes again. She formed a similar fist with her right hand and a flat palm with her left. Drawing her hands apart from each other, she explained, “It’s the letter ‘a’ and ‘big.’ I actually came up with it, and I think Scott only agreed because I’m the deaf one here.” 

“Hmm, nope it just, ironically, does not feel  _ big  _ enough to capture you,” Liam said. “Guess we have a lot of time to come up with a new one.”

There was a faint skidding noise as the tram pulled into port at Operations. The doors opened into the long, sterile hallway, standing empty.

Standing up, she said, “I’m afraid to know what you will come up with, but...yeah, I think it’s time for a new one, you know?”

He stood up with her and followed her to the door. “It all comes back to what I was saying before, about calling you Pathfinder. I wanted you to feel like someone respected you in the role, never questioned your place in it.”

They were facing each other now, him still on the tram and her standing just outside the doors. He wasn’t just smiling; he was glowing with pride and confidence in her. She felt something stir in her, and without thinking, she stood on the tips of her toes and cupped his stubbled jaw in her hands. Pulling him down to her, she kissed him. There was a moment of hesitation before she felt him smile against her lips, and his hand at the back of her head, threaded into the hair at the back of her neck and pulling her closer. As she reached an arm up to wrap around his neck, the tram VI chimed, “Stand clear of the closing doors.” 

Her eyes snapped open, and she felt her face go hot. As the doors started to slide shut smoothly, she felt that she had lost all ability to control her body. On the other side of the doorway, Liam seemed to be thinking the exact same thing, his eyes wide and one of his hands reaching up to feel his own lips.

Just as the doors sealed with a slight clunk, she turned on her heel and sprinted down the rest of the hallway, footsteps reverberating as she swore under her breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scott's first name in this chapter is said to be Liwei, an homage to the first Chinese astronaut, Yang Liwei. :)


	3. Small Fights and Movie Nights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the extremely late update!!! I've been so busy. However, this chapter is a bit of a long one. I'm trying to make it slightly more serialized. Hope you enjoy!

She did end up meeting Liam at Vortex that evening, after what had to be her most annoying meeting with the Initiative directors that skirted views of the angara as resources to be harvested. Consequently, she showed up to the bar demanding a drink and spitting out “Tann’s a fucking snake.” He had asked if they could talk about what happened earlier, but the layers of music and voices and shuffling feet made it impossible for her to pick out his voice entirely. They gave up and tested each other’s alcohol tolerance instead, a game that only required expressiveness and a willingness to make a fool of oneself -- skills they both had mastered.

 

When she woke up the next day, head throbbing and tangled in the sheets of her bed, still fully clothed, SAM suggested less consumption of hard alcohols in the future. Then, he asked if he should alert Dr. Lexi that she was feeling unwell.

 

“Definitely not,” she replied, sitting up slowly, grimacing at the stale taste of her own mouth. She wiped the spit that had dried across her cheek with the back of her hand and blinked a few times. She was uncomfortably sweaty beneath her faux-leather coat. Looking around the room, she saw her shoes tossed carelessly onto the floor, and thanked whoever was listening that she at least had that level of forethought before passing out.

 

“Pathfinder, when you are available, you have new emails at your terminal,” SAM intoned. His voice sounded like an echo.

 

“Can’t hear you, buddy,” she said.

 

“Apologies, Pathfinder, I was speaking from the display on your desk,” his just-noticeably inhuman voice came this time from her implant. She nearly jumped at the shock of it.

 

Recovering and registering what the AI had said, she threw herself back down on her bed, the comforter puffing up around her as she yawned. “Relay them through my datapad.” Throwing an arm out across the sheets, she groped around for the small tablet. Most nights she fell asleep still reading off of it, and woke up to it somewhere on the bed beside her, but of course she hadn’t had time or ability to do so last night. She thought, rather childishly, about how things she lost when she was younger had  a habit of reappearing beneath her bed.

 

Rolling over onto her stomach, she peaked over the edge and saw her vague reflection in the shiny mahogany floor staring back up at her. Her hair was falling out of its ponytail in bunches, a ratty black curtain falling into her eyes. Left eye throbbing, she reached a hand to the smooth, faux-wood floor and began feeling around clumsily. She rolled her eyes at her own clutter: a pair of socks with a hole in the toes (already?), the horrid green stuffed animal from Suvi’s bunk (the pyjak must have stolen it), and a monkey wrench (to return to Gil). Finally, she found the datapad, turned upside down and pressed against the wall at the head of the bed. It must have toppled over the top during her odd thrashing movements while in deep sleep. Body contorting strangle once again as she attempted to retrieve it without leaving the mattress, she eventually made contact with it. Pushing it with her fingertips until she could finally grab it properly, she then settled into the mattress once again and unlocked her tablet.

 

Scrolling through the various notices, replies, and spam, she stopped at one labelled “About yesterday.” Stomach dropping in worry, she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and opened the email. It flew into place in bold white letters against her inbox’s deep blue.

 

 

 

 

> **About yesterday** **To: Aphelia Ryder** **From: Liam Kosta**
> 
> **Hey, Pathfinder.** **You know, twelve (?) shots with no chaser seemed like a great idea at the time, stellar even. I think cryo seriously altered my tolerance. Can’t even remember who won. But if you’ve got the hangover I’ve got, guess we’ve both lost.** **Thought I’d spare your pride though and bring it up now, but also spare both of our dignities in this sorry state. That was weird, right? Not the part with you. I mean, it was _all_ with you. But I mean that we kissed, and not when we were drunk. (I hope.) A lot happened yesterday, and emotions run high in the moment -- I know the drill.  Things happen. Especially on a ship like this.** **Make no mistake, I’m not running away with my tail between my legs. There are no regrets from me. Just want to know where you’re at. No pressure if you don’t even know.**
> 
> **I’ll be recovering. You know where to find me.**
> 
> **Kosta**
> 
> **“Jovially: Good company, good wine, good welcome can make good people” - some Elcor lord in Elcor Henry VIII**
> 
> **[Liam has included two media files. The first is titled “oops” and appears to be full of various vids about alcohol-related mistakes, including multiple variations of the “Hangover” series. In contrast, the second is a partial collection of Elcor Shakespeare and includes all of the Bard’s political plays. It is titled “To make Tann look like a good leader.”]**

 

She couldn't help but smile at the attachments, covering her mouth to try to stifle her laughter as she wondered if she should feel guilty. And she sighed, pulling herself back down to reality.

 

Rereading the message, she tried to figure out where his heart was in all of it. It wasn’t that she expected him to be at her feet, professing his love - she shuddered at the thought - but it was all so...casual. And that was very Liam, wasn’t it? Somehow, everything with him felt simultaneously casual yet critically important. He had more passion in his resting state than others had at their most driven.

 

And here he was, so blatantly honest he might have been sharing idle gossip rather than matters of his own heart.

 

Yet he had given her a choice, so maybe he was still reserved, protecting himself. She reminded herself that she had not known him longer than a few weeks, so guessing at his behavior was taking leaps, at best. Were they still strangers to each other? Was she just trying to make something work? Had she sped into whatever ease and joy she had been feeling with him because she was so tragically _lonely_?

 

Had everything with her father and brother left her emotionally vulnerable, and now she was clinging to any semblance of attachment? And did thinking it now make it true? Worst of all: Did Liam know that, based on his email?

 

Okay, that was enough disgusting overthinking for the day. Liam was being cautious and kind, and these were the thoughts she had in turn.

 

In an instant, she nudged her mind to switch gears. She was thirsty. She rolled over again, groaning, to the edge of the bed and swung her legs over the edge. Making contact with the bare metal floor, she winced at the raw cold of it. Hovering her feet over the edge for a moment, she counted to three under her breath before springing up in a nearly unsuccessful attempt at standing.

Teetering for a moment, she rubbed at her eyes and tugged her hair completely out of its tangled ponytail as she made her way towards the door. Stumbling out of her clothes, she threw them carelessly onto the floor, entering the hallway in just her underwear and her simple black undershirt.

 

The Tempest was quiet except for the muffled hum of the engines. While there was a very small crew aboard, she still regularly found movement and noises echoing down the halls. Perhaps everyone had had as eventful a night as she had.

 

Taking a sharp turn into the kitchen, she did discover another sign of life: Peebee, who appeared to be raiding the cabinets. Various packages of proteins were strewn across the floor. The offending Asari turned to look at her, but didn’t look sheepish at all. “Oh, hey Ryder,” she said, then paused to take in her appearance. “Woah, you’ve seen better days.”

 

“Have I?” she asked dryly.

 

“Oh yeah,” Peebee responded cheekily. “Seen some of them myself.”

 

Aphelia simply winked in response, then moved around her to open a cabinet. “Looking for something?”

 

“You guys have to have better food than-”

 

“Hey, sorry, totally listening, but could you slow down?” she asked. “When you get going, the words kind of...avalanche out, and I can’t keep up.”  
  
“Oh, right. Sorry,” Peebee said quickly, then stopped, grimacing at her own unrefined tongue. She cleared her throat and spoke louder and clearer. “I was saying that you guys have to have better food than the Initiative’s glorified paste. _Have_ to.”

 

“Nope,” Aphelia said. “That’s it.”

 

“You’re kidding.”

“God, I wish.” She moved to the sink, pouring water from the tap into the glass she had retrieved. “I’d say it’s more rock than paste, though.”

 

“I thought they were just hoarding all the good stuff for the Pathfinders!” Peebee looked personally offended. “So there _is_ no good stuff?”

 

“You’d probably have better luck asking Vetra.” Aphelia leaned against one of the cabinets, drinking the water quickly, some of it dribbling down her chin.

 

“Hmm,” Peebee pulled a face, mulling over the idea.

 

“Question” she said suddenly, putting down the now empty glass.

 

“Hmm?” the Asari asked, barely changing the inflection of the sound.

 

“You’re pretty impulsive, right, Peebs?”

 

“Peebs?”

 

“What? It’s cute.” Aphelia shrugged. “But anyway, do you ever think you get attached to people too fast?”

 

Peebee practically howled with laughter in response. “Ryder, that is the opposite of my problem.” She pushed herself up onto the counter beside her, nudging Aphelia’s leg with her foot and rolling her eyes.

 

“I’m not asking if you trust people, Peebs. Just if you like them.”

 

“I like people fine. Some of the time. And you don’t have to trust ‘em to like ‘em. Goddess, you’re in a strange mood today.”

 

“Just thinking about some things,” she replied, trying to pull on a smile. Her head was throbbing and she held the empty glass, still cool, to her temple and closed her eyes.

 

“Well, no offense to you, but I don’t want to hear it. Gotta get back to work on this Remtech, since this has been a bust,” Peebee said, gesturing in annoyance at the now dirty floor. She turned on her heel, and Aphelia opened her eyes to watch her go, amused. The Asari marched to the door, pausing to quickly scoop up one of the spilled protein bars. She pocketed it and turned around. “Oh and word from the wise?” Aphelia nodded. “Have fun.” Not expecting that, Aphelia felt her face contort to express her confusion. Peebee elaborated: “If it’s all gonna blow up in your face anyway, might as well give it some tinder. Something to burn”

 

The door jumped open, and she gave a showy wave before dashing out and leaping onto the ladder to the upper deck. Aphelia didn’t know whether to laugh or complain to no one in particular. Her whole body sagged with fatigue, caught in waves of nausea. Tossing the glass into the sink, she thought of returning to bed, maybe reading a few reports to at least try and feel productive.

 

Padding towards the door Peebee had just exited from, she also scooped a protein bar off the floor, and started tearing off the packaging. With a shake of her head, she told herself to clean the room up later, when she didn’t feel like she had been tossed into a vault with a malfunctioning gravity well.

 

Collapsing onto her bed again, she pulled up Liam’s email on the datapad again, Peebee’s words ringing in her mind. Who could know how much of what either of them had felt was purely situational? And did that make it somehow invalid? She liked the feeling of sitting beside him and feeling his warmth, or that special hum that seemed to fill the air when they smiled at each other. She typed out a quick response, biting her lip as she tried to force down a cheeky grin.

 

 

 

 

 

> **RE: About yesterday**
> 
> **To: Liam Kosta**
> 
> **From: Aphelia Ryder**
> 
> **I feel the same, Kosta. About everything. From the hangover to...all of it.**
> 
>  
> 
> **P.S. I’m beginning to think you have all of (Elcor) Shakespeare memorized.**
> 
>  
> 
> **P.P.S. That’s cute.**

 

She rolled her eyes at her own words, erasing the second postscript and retyping it multiple times before closing her eyes and finally smashing send. Heart thumping hard and loud in her chest for reasons other than a hangover, she desperately opened another email and downloaded a report Suvi had sent her on plant species native to Eos.

 

She was only past the abstract when the terminal on her desk pinged to alert her of a notification. It flashed a bright blue as well, accommodating for the easy-to-miss high frequency of the alert.

 

“Pathfinder, you have a new email at your terminal,” SAM intoned.

 

“You know the drill, SAM. Relay it to the datapad,”she said, not having moved on the bed. She was surprised at how nervous she felt, how weightless, as she scrambled to pull it up.

 

 

 

 

> **RE: RE: About yesterday**
> 
> **To: Aphelia Ryder**
> 
> **From: Liam Kosta**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> **It’s possible. Even more possible if you’re into it.**

 

She dropped the datapad onto her chest and pressed her palms over her eyes, feeling so much like an infatuated fool that it was downright Shakespearean.

 

 

 

 

> **RE: RE: RE: About yesterday**
> 
> **To: Liam Kosta**
> 
> **From: Aphelia Ryder**
> 
>  
> 
> **Get some rest before I pull rank on you.**
> 
>  

She could practically hear his laugh as she tossed the datapad onto the pillow beside her, closing her eyes and feeling her stomach flutter at the thought of it.

 

* * *

 

 

A couple of weeks Earth time had passed, and they seemed to be dancing around each other. They egged each other on in combat and in humor, receiving annoyed looks from other members of the crew. Jaal was shocked to learn they had not known each other before Heleus. She had only smiled in return.

 

Besides that, there was casual flirting woven into their conversations, sure, but they had not kissed again, or even strayed near physical contact beyond their playful nudges. Neither of them were outright acknowledging it, and that was fine. Havarl and Voeld were proving themselves challenges enough, demanding so much of their time and energy, and consuming her attention and curiosity.

 

The whole squad had begun working on a very basic, combat-oriented system of signs outside any established linguistic. It wasn’t intended to replace comms, but enhance team coordination. While limiting scope of the battlefield, it was dangerous to always rely on verbal communication; that hadn’t been a hard pitch to sell. Liam had pitched in a story from Crisis Response where survivors of a blast resisted their help, rendered temporarily deaf by the explosion, and unable, due to overwhelming hysteria, to comprehend that the newcomers were there to help. There was a bout of silence before Drack cryptically related to the story, leaving many questions that no one dared ask.

 

However, it proved to be a challenge, accommodating for everyone’s varying number of fingers and their ability to use them. Many of them were very intuitive (or were intuitive to some species, anyway), such as gesturing directions to head in, or to stop, while others were more complicated. They worked out signs for each person, (with a few suggested rude ones that led to uproarious laughter and brief arguments) and gestures to refer to each other’s abilities. And while there hadn’t been many missions yet to test it on the field, many of them seemed to be fighting more cohesively, recognizing each other’s strengths.

 

Jaal was fascinated by biotics and thrilled to see them on the field. Once, on Havarl, as a particularly vicious Rylkor charged at him, its clubbed tail whipping through the air behind it, he made a gesture with his arm, jerking it suddenly upward -- a biotic pull. Just as the beast reared to pounce on him, it skyrocketed with a screech from the force of not one or two, but _three_ biotic pulls - Cora, Peebee, and Aphelia had looked around in confusion to find that all of them had their arms raised, the air crackling around them. Jaal laughed loudly, calling out to them in thanks, and they found themselves laughing too, each taking a shot at the creature when it arced back towards them.

 

“Shit yeah!” Liam said when Aphelia told him the story on the Tempest that night, stretched out on his ratty couch beside her. “Man, the last time we were out there, it was stuff like Vetra maybe-purposefully-but-I-can’t-prove-anything aiming for me.”

 

“Please, Kosta, if Vetra purposefully aimed for you, we wouldn’t be talking right now,” she responded, laughing and taking a swig of beer.

 

Liam considered. “Still though, three powerful biotics against one little Rylkor? Must have gone into the stratosphere.” He shook his head, eyes staring dreamily at the bulkhead above him.

 

“Well, not really, because biotic pulls slowly drag the target towards you, not away. A biotic throw, though…” She chewed on her lip, considering, then turned back to him with a wry smile. “Poor thing would have to say hello to the architect for us.”

 

“On Eos?” he asked.

 

“On Eos,” she nodded, still smiling.

 

“I’ll drink to that,” he laughed, then raised his drink in the air between them. Her smile spread into a full grin as their glasses clinked, a few drops spilling and she didn’t care. Both of them were sitting warmly, glowing in a pleasant tipsiness,  something far preferable to being the sloppy drunks they had been a few weeks before. She wanted to savor this little pocket of time. She could already feel her mind dog earing the page, as if making a note to preserve the memory. It was nothing special, not really, but nice.

 

Several seconds passed, and she found they were still holding eye contact. Seeming to realize this, his eyes strayed down towards her lips, and his own curled up in a goofy grin. “You’ve got some lipstick on your teeth, I think.”

 

“Oh, do I?” She was still smiling, crinkling her nose.

 

“Yeah, it’s...Hold on.” He leaned forward, his breath warm and smelling slightly of beer. “Definitely lipstick. Your front top tooth.” She reached a hand up and rubbed where he indicated. “Got it,” he said.

 

For a moment, while he was right there, she wanted to kiss him again. They were so temptingly close. But just as she processed the thought, he leaned back again. However, instead of nestling into his usual corner, he was facing forward, sitting beside her, his arm along the back, teasingly close to wrapping around her.

 

She easily transitioned. “The 22nd century and we still can’t perfect the matte lipstick,” she quipped.

 

“29th century, if you want to be technical about it,” he said casually.

 

“Exactly!” she said in fake exasperation. “It’s time.” She yawned, then leaned forward to place her glass down on the crate he used as a coffee table. Drawing her legs up beneath her on the couch, she turned to face him. “Want to watch an old vid?”

 

“When do I not?” Liam said, removing his arm from around her and activating his omni tool. He pulled up the index of his personal library on a small, translucent screen  projected above his arm. It glowed dimly, a waxy orange reaching to the ceiling. “Now, when you say ‘old’...what century?”

 

“Well, I have a specific vid in mind. I don’t know if you have it, though,” she looked away from the screen and to his face. He was sitting up straight, raising his eyebrow at her as if he had been challenged.

 

“Try me.”

 

“Late 20th century,” she said evenly.

 

“Oh, that’s a good time. Very quirky.” He was still waiting.

 

“Havarl got me thinking, since it’s this impossible jungle world.” She could feel her smile creeping back up, almost embarrassed at her train of thought. “And the Rylkor almost look like raptors…”

 

Liam caught right on, a grin spreading across his face as he clicked a few times on his omni-tool without even looking, and the screen on the opposite wall popped to life on a scene of an outrageously low-tech paleontological dig.

 

“Jurassic Park,” they said in unison. Suddenly, he seemed to remember something and tapped a couple instructions until text appeared on the screen. “Subtitles for you.”

 

 As his omni-tool faded away, he settled back once again, throwing his arm around her again, his fingertips falling lightly on her shoulder.

 

* * *

 

 

Nearly two weeks later, Aphelia was hundreds of meters beneath the surface of Voeld, leaping across platforms in the vault as if outrunning hypothermia. The cold was working through her armor, making her fingers stiff and her feet numb. Her life support was inconsistent, her own breath fogging up the inside of her helmet.

 

She had a smaller squad - just Vetra and Liam - not wanting to risk too many people in the vault at once, especially when they would inevitably end up retracing their steps and running for their lives.

 

“I think it’s safe to say that hell has actually frozen over,” she huffed after leaping across yet another gaping chasm.

 

“Can this ‘hell’ place in human religion only be really really hot?” Vetra asked, voice warbling slightly in the comms. She rotated slowly as she eyed the nooks of the enormous vaulted ceiling for any stray Observers.

 

“Basically,” Liam said.

 

“Yeah, I think I have a few more suggestions for a place of eternal suffering,” Vetra replied.

 

“Maybe that’s why not all humans believe in it?” Liam wondered. “I mean, aside from the people with religions that don’t have it to begin with. It’s too simplistic.”

 

They seemed to carry on the conversation, but she didn’t focus on it, leaping up a few ledges and activating a console. There was a deep groaning through the cavern as a few pillars rose from the depths, the strange omni-gel like liquid still dripping off their circuit-like surfaces. “What do you think the freezing point of the remnant liquid is?” she wondered aloud, cutting into the conversation.

 

“Who knows?” Vetra asked, heading towards the raised platform. “I know Suvi would love to get her hands on it.”

 

“Yeah, it’s just strange. Eos and Voeld are hugely different environments, but there seems to be no change to it at all. What is it even there for?”

 

“Something involving terraforming?” Liam offered. They were racing towards a console on the opposite side now. The stream of bluish light that would release the purification field was within sight.

 

“Insightful,” Vetra sounded bored.

 

“We’re out of our depth anyway, thousands or millions or whatever years outside of-”

 

“Guys!” Aphelia said in a loud whisper. “Think I just saw an Assembler crawling around.”

 

“Got it,” Vetra said, voice hard again as she raised her rifle.

 

“Got your 6,” Liam replied.

 

She took cover behind a low blast shelter, staring up at the platform some five meters above them. Tracking an Assembler, another one loped robotically into view, walking in the opposite direction. She threw up two fingers over her shoulder.

 

“Three, actually,” Liam intoned over the comms. “Another one just behind the first two.”

 

“And one of those heated fields just behind them,” Vetra said. “We have to get there _fast_.”

 

She felt she couldn’t last another minute in the cold. Huffing out a determined breath, she leapt up, activating her jump jets and laughing “Race you!” Grabbing onto the ledge, she fired up the jets again, sending herself flying.

 

“Not fair with a head start!” Liam called, laughing as well.

 

The Remnant locked onto their sound, turning in sync and beginning to fire rapidly. She arced through the air above them, then came down hard, losing her balance and falling over briefly. Recovering quickly, she turned around, still on the ground, and with a deep breath, threw her arm at an approaching bot. A wave of biotic energy leapt forth and crashed against the Assembler, and it flew over the edge, legs moving wildly on either side of it as it attempted to find its bearings. Within seconds, its blue corona faded and it plummeted to the depths of the chamber.

 

Aphelia smiled briefly, then pushed herself up. There was gunfire somewhere near her, but she couldn’t locate the sound. She was only a few meters away from the field, and she could almost feel the heat seeping into her suit. Her heart raced as she made a dash for it, looking over her shoulder to see what appeared to be the final bot now focusing on her. Stopping in her tracks, she cocked her arm, charging an Overload, feeling it vibrate, shaking her arm somewhat unstably, ready to release, and then-

 

“I got you!” Liam ran right in front of her, firing at its legs. One of them blew out, leaving the bot firing rapidly as it spun in circles on the floor. Vetra fired a killing shot, and then ran past both of them to the field.

 

“Kosta, I had that covered,” she said, annoyed.

 

“Don’t doubt it. Just trying to help,” Liam said, clapping her on the shoulder as he passed her.

 

“What the-” Any expletive felt useless. Her mind was blocked for a moment with a hot flash of anger before it dissipated. Standing there awkwardly, she forgot about the heat entirely before SAM reminded her.

 

It was exactly the kind of relief she expected it to be, her life support and shields fulling charged again. She rolled her shoulders back, comedically leaping back and forth between her feet as the feeling came back into them.

 

After allowing themselves a few minutes reprieve, they continued on in silence. She swallowed down her annoyance, dismissing it as a gross mixture of her pettiness and competitiveness. A few more Assemblers went down with relative ease before they reached the final platform, wide and octagonal, swarming with remnant. The light from the center was near-blinding, something between liquid and gas as it gushed on eternally.

 

The Assemblers and Observers went down with a few shots and some well-placed Overloads. Then, a Nullifier came hulking into view on three legs, its wall of shields raised in front of its overlarge body. Ducking behind a cover, she took a few strategic shots, but the shields absorbed most of them.

 

Limbs shaking from both the cold and fatigue, she felt another rush of adrenaline. She was so ready to be done and out of here. And with the shield and its weapon raised in front, the bot’s back was entirely vulnerable. Running around it would take too long. She needed something faster.

 

“I’m gonna get behind it!” She yelled into the comm, not caring about the responses.

 

Vaulting over the cover, she began running directly towards the Nullifier. She was preparing herself to jump as high as she could before using the jets to give herself the extra momentum. Her eyes were hardened, shields lowering slightly as she took a few hits, but nothing major, not enough to slow her, until -

 

Something - _someone_ \- hit her from the side, her breath knocking out of her as she stumbled, disoriented. Falling to her knees, she breathed for a moment, and felt her hands ball into fists as she saw the perpetrator: Liam.

 

Liam, who was now standing in front of her, firing away at the thing, taking heavy fire, but, by his posture, was hardly even reacting to it. The Nullifier was starting to smoke, one of its legs was hanging off slightly. However, the air around Liam seemed to be warbling in and out of focus. His shields were going to fail soon.

 

“Liam, you _idiot_ ,” she roared, still on the ground, throwing her arm out and groaning with exertion as she created a biotic shield that arced in front of both of them, humming a faint blue. It appeared to be blinking, as if deciding whether or not to exist. Stabilizing herself, she sat up on her knees, adding her other arm to the weak field.

 

He turned in confusion to look back at her, eyes a mixture of worry and admiration. In front of them, the Nullifier exploded into a rainfall of scrap metal. Then, it was quiet, and they were all left with the sounds of their own breathing. Grunting, she dropped her arms and the shield in front of them blew out as if it were a fragile candlelight.

 

“Everyone alright?” Vetra asked, breaking the silence. “Think we’re clear.”

 

“Debatable,” Aphelia spat, still on the ground. Then, shaking her head, said “Yeah, we’re fine, thanks for asking. Heading to the console now.”

 

“Never seen you do a biotic shield before,” Liam began awkwardly, offering her a hand.

 

She pushed it out of the way, part of her regretting it as a wave of exhaustion swept through her as she stood up. “Yeah, biotics aren’t exactly my strong suit. And because you’re apparently going around and _playing the hero_ today, you made _me_ play _Cora_!”

 

“I’m not playing the hero!” Liam was raising his voice now too, exasperated. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to knock you over, but you’re the one being all kinds of risky, running straight at a goddamn Remnant twice in one day.”

 

“I was handling it! Like I said, I was going to get it from behind, hit it where it’s weak!”

 

“Ryder, that’s _reckless_ ,” he said emphatically, voice lowered but firm. Her jaw clenched, mouth tasting bitter. “Sure, you’ve got a plan, but you’re gonna get yourself killed before you can even do it.”

 

“And what about you doing the same thing makes it okay?” She yelled, refusing to lower her voice. Everything inside of her felt bitter, poised to burst and all she could do was try to yell, get the hate _out._ “What about your fighting style is any less ‘reckless’?”

 

Before he could answer, she turned to Vetra, who had walked over to the pair, still raising her weapon as if she was debating using it. “Vetra, isn’t Liam just auditioning for the part of an unholy _martyr_ when he fights?”

 

Liam turned to their other companion as well. “Vetra, hasn’t _Aphelia_ been running around pressing her own damn self destruct button all day?” She was taken aback at the use of her first name, stunned to a degree she almost forgot her anger.

 

“Personal opinion: you’re both idiots, and this _right here_ is my idea of hell,” Vetra said. “Professional opinion: I don’t want to freeze to death, so can we get a move on that console?”

 

“Vetra has a point, Pathfinder. Your life support systems are nearly non-operational, and the temperature remains below freezing,” SAM intoned over all their comms.

 

“God, yeah. Sorry,” she said quietly.

 

“You will have time to argue with Mr. Kosta after the Vault has been reset,” the AI added.

 

“Who taught you passive-aggression?” She practically snorted, walking over to the console. “Sorry, Vetra,” she said. Holding her hand out to the console, she felt the energy work through her. In these moments, she felt SAM's presence the most. It felt like two vibrating surfaces were meeting: herself and the vault. They both hummed, but the vault’s song had been thrown and rusted off-key. “Get ready to run, she said. “And Liam, don’t try and run into the purification field.”

 

Finally, it clicked, and they were in harmony with each other.

 

“Not gonna do that unless you try to first,” Liam retorted.

 

The jet of plasma suddenly turned a bright red, a groan echoing as if from the center of the planet. Then, the gas came, murky and grey, gushing through the air like it was trying to overtake every inch of it.

 

“GO, GO, GO,” Aphelia called, limbs practically going into autopilot, sprinting with energy she didn’t know she had left. They kept a good pace, leaping over ledges, jump-jetting from pillar to pillar as if playing a deadly game of hopscotch.

 

“You didn’t - answer - my question, Kosta,” she huffed out as she pulled herself up a pathway. She pointed to the left, indicating a sharp turn up ahead. “Why- are your- stunts - okay - when mine- aren’t?”

 

“Uhhh...you’re the fucking Pathfinder,” he said matter-of-factly.

 

She turned over her shoulder to make a face at him. “So?”

 

“So?!” He said. Jump jets flaring, he leapt over a ridge, Aphelia in tow. He yelled something she couldn’t make out over the sound of her own breathing.

 

“I can’t even hear you!” She yelled. But like hell was she done with the argument - even if she couldn’t hear the other side. She felt slightly wounded, alarmed at the implications of his words. “Do you not trust me?”

 

There were more indistinct words before something came through, loud and clear.

 

“Now - is not - the time -” Vetra hissed from the ridge above them. “Do you not remember the killer gas? Right behind us?”

 

“I would trust you - with - my- life,” Liam said, pulling himself onto the pillar Vetra had just evacuated. “Just not sure I trust you with yours.”

 

As Aphelia boosted up beside him, he stopped to offer his hand again. She took it, easily mounting the ridge and running on, processing what he had said.

 

“If you believe that, I don’t want you risking yourself for it,” she said, quieter this time. “I need you alive.”

 

Liam said something again that she couldn’t quite hear. However, as she was about to ask him to repeat, she spotted the end console after the next jump. “It’s just beyond this pillar! The next big chamber.” she yelled, the gas roiling up behind them.

 

After crossing that gap, they all sprinted into the separate chamber, gathering around the console as Aphelia leaned over it, gasping as she struggled to interface with it. At the last moment, the doors slammed shut, the gas appearing to back off like a subdued hound.

 

Panting, she doubled over, hands on her knees as her breaths slowed down. Liam appeared to be walking it off, pacing a few feet away.

 

Vetra stood next to her, so she addressed her quietly, “I’m really sorry, Vetra. That you had to...deal with all of that.” The other woman shrugged noncommittally before speaking.

 

“If it’s alright with you, I’m going to head up. Talk to him if you need to. _Now_ is a better time than anything earlier, Ryder.” There was still a fondness to her voice, despite the annoyance.

 

“Yeah, go ahead. Go see this world reinventing itself.” She attempted a smile, wondering the ways to make it up to her friend.

 

“I have a feeling this world is gonna be a sight to see one day,” she said, and with that, she wandered over to the gravity well. Aphelia watched her, the turian woman’s body becoming utterly relaxed and weightless as she appeared to glide upwards of her own accord, the tunnel above them glowing a vibrant green.

 

Liam was already walking over to her, taking off his helmet and panting opaque clouds into the slowly warming air. She tried to sort through all the emotions that turned up, like something ugly under an overturned stone: anger, frustration, disappointment, and...worry?

 

Taking her helmet off too, the cold stinging her face, she said “So what is this about not trusting me with my own life?” Her voice was measured, slower and quieter now. It echoed, and she felt the weight of every word.

 

“I respect you,” he said immediately, as if he could sense the unsaid wound beneath her question. “I respect the _shit_ out of you, and I have never seen a person fight like you. The blending of tech, weapons, strength, and even biotics sometimes. It seems instinctual. You were born for this.”

 

At some point, he had stepped closer  to her so they were barely a foot apart. He looked earnest, the gentle brown of his eyes pleading for her to understand how serious he was. None of that was what she had been expecting. The fight had seemed to have drained out of both of them.

 

“And?” She said, still not understanding.

 

“And I don't know whether to cheer or scream in terror!” There was a hint of a laugh, his eyes not leaving her face. “You're a badass out there,” he gestured vaguely, as if indicating some singular battlefield. “But you're also reckless as hell, Aphelia.”

 

Her first name again. It still felt strange coming from his mouth. He considered every letter, the ending a savored “ee-uh” rather than slurring it together in a swooping “ya” as so many others did. She liked it; her name was less of a jumble of sounds in his mouth.

 

“Liam, you could also be talking about yourself.” She couldn't count the number of times she had seen him running straight at a Kett, dual Omni blades flickering to life, arms opening like the jaws of some impossibly large creature.

 

He laughed ever so slightly. “I know it.”

 

“Why the double standard?” She felt a slight flare of anger again, passing her helmet from one hand to the other, needing to do something to restrain herself from an outburst. “I worry about the shit you pull.”

 

“I know, I know,” he said. “Guess I’m starting to realize that.”

 

She pursed her lips and took a deep breath. Looking up at him again, she said sternly, “And I don’t want to hear this ‘you’re the Pathfinder’ business. I know where you’re coming from, but it sounds like you’re making yourself expendable. If that’s what it has to be, then _fuck_ Pathfinders!” Her voice was raising again in exasperation. “We’re about a team, not a single person. I don’t want to be a symbol if it means standing in the blood of my friends.”

 

“Think some people might need a symbol to hold onto, but I hear you,” he replied. “The Initiative has to be bigger than that, or we’ll never survive.”

 

She nodded sternly. This seriousness felt like a new face she was trying on, and it didn’t quite fit right. “Exactly. So do you get me, Kosta?”

 

“Perfectly, Pathfinder.”

 

She smiled slightly at the return to her title. He was still reminding her, subtly, that she deserved it. “Good.”

 

“One thing though,” he said.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I’ve still got your back.” He smiled more in his eyes than on his lips, placing his hand on her shoulder.

 

“Good,” she replied, unsure of why her voice felt so weak. She took a tiny step closer, looking anywhere but at his face. She laid her hand on his chest, feeling it rise and fall steadily with his breaths. “I’ve got yours. And that’s never going to be the problem here.”

 

Suddenly, she laughed. It was barely audible, but she looked up to him, a grin spreading across her face. “We’re being ridiculous.”

 

He laughed in turn, his face transfigured from its solemnity in an instant. “Par for the course, then. Still managed to thaw the iceberg planet though, so really that’s…” He trailed off as she stood on the tips of her toes, her armor’s boots clunky but giving her some extra height. He watched her, breathing halted, eyes starting to close, as she slowly pressed her lips to his.

 

It wasn’t picturesque. Everything still slightly numb, his lips were cold and slightly chapped, and her nose was starting to run, but it hardly mattered. The gloved fingertips of his free hand (as both of them were still clutching their helmets at their sides) lightly grazed the side of her face. After a moment, she slowly pulled away, a small noise escaping from the back of his throat, and then his breath was hot and clouded on her face.

 

She cleared her throat, licking her own chapped lips as she stepped away from him. Looking towards the gravity well, she started “Sorry, that was -”

 

“Good,” he said, and when she turned back he was grinning. “That was good.”

 

Before she could say anything, he grabbed her hand, practically bouncing as he pulled her towards the gravity well. “I’ve been wondering: D’you think two people could go up at the same time?”

 

Aphelia grinned, tongue between her teeth as she faced him. “Mr. Kosta, I believe there’s only one way to find out.”

 

“Better buckle your seatbelts - or, helmets, in this case,” Liam said cheekily. He pushed his hair back, unruly strands resisting as he attempted to cover it. Following his lead, she put her helmet on as well, listening to it pressurize. As her life support became operational, the feeling returned to her face.

 

“Ready?” Liam asked, voice clear over the comms.

 

“You bet.”

 

Facing each other, she reached out between the two of them, and he took her hands in both of his. Standing just at the edge of the well, she already felt lighter. The strange  silver orb hummed slightly. “Count of three,” she said. He nodded.

 

“One - two,“ she began, looking at him in confusion.

 

“Three - two -” He said simultaneously.

 

“Three!” “One!” They yelled in unison, jumping into the well, laughing as there was a slight jolt around her middle, and then there was no pressure at all. She could hardly even feel her armor. Nothing at all weighed down on her. They ascended, legs bent beneath them as if they had been frozen mid-jump.

 

“Who counts backwards!?” she yelled unnecessarily as the well was eerily silent.

 

“I do!” he laughed.

 

Then, the cavernous chamber disappeared from view as they entered the small tunnel, lined intricately its glowing green. They were rotating slightly around the axis of their held hands, and the lighted walls of the tunnel seemed to pulse and swirl. The experience never lost its thrill for her; every time was as invigorating as the first. It wasn’t quite the same as losing gravity on a ship, for they didn’t fly about aimlessly. It was somehow still controlled, even reversible.

 

It was only in these moments that she truly felt invincible, no matter how reckless she was in combat. The striped lights of the tunnel seemed to blur and stretch on infinitely, and she was reminded of how far they had come. Prothean ruins had nothing on this.

 

Doesn’t it kind of remind you,” Liam’s voice came through suddenly, tearing her from her thoughts, “of the way FTL looked in old vids? Starlight just stretched into a wormhole.”

 

“Yeah! Yeah it does,” she said. “Back when humanity could only dream about these moments.”

 

She felt his gloved thumb run along the back of her hand. “Feels like a dream.”

 

“What?” she asked. “No Shakespeare?”

 

“Hmm. I can think of a line, but...” he pondered. “Not now. Don’t need it.”

 

He was looking at her now, not the well or the tunnel at all. She felt a blush rise in her cheeks, meeting his eyes through the glass of both of their helmets. They continued upwards, the top coming into view as the light muted. Suddenly, he laughed, loud and ringing.

 

“What?” she asked, heart beating rapidly in her ear.

 

“Just thought of something,” he said, pausing for effect. “Glad the gravity well works, because all you ever seem to do is fall.”

 

“Shut up!” she yelled, trying not to give him the satisfaction of making her laugh, and failing.

 

And, just as suddenly as the ascent began, it ended, the lights dying down and leaving them in tones of grey, and the single iridescent blue hovering above where the tunnel was moments before.. There was another jolt as she landed on her feet again with a slight clapping noise. They smiled.

 

“Hey Vetra, how’s it looking?” She asked over the comms.

 

There was a slight click before she came in. “Come see for yourself. Liam there? Or did you leave him to die?”

 

“Unfortunately still here, Vetra,” he chimed in.

 

“And everything is fine,” Aphelia added.

 

“Damn,” the other woman replied jokingly. “But glad to hear you two worked it out.”

 

“Me too,” she said. “Be up in a minute.”

 

They each let go of the other’s hands, staring for a lingering moment before heading to the door, side by side. It slid open, and what caught her off guard was how still everything was. She was not hit instantly with angry flurries of snow, and her thoughts were not drowned out by a howling gale.

 

Vetra was standing at the top of the ramp in front of them, looking out over the crest to the ridge of snow capped mountains on the other side of the valley before them. The hillsides were dappled white and brown, looking almost textureless in their uniformity.

 

Reaching the top of the ramp, she positioned herself between her two companions. Then, she looked down into the valley below, able to make out the thick tracks of the Nomad crossing the barren landscape, and remarked “I’m not afraid of getting blown away anymore. We sure this is Voeld?”

 

“Did you look _up_?” Vetra asked.

 

At that prompting, she tilted her head back and gasped. The sky was not just clear but _alive_ : ribbons of vibrant green danced and twirled their way across the deep black beyond. As they moved, more colors seemed to pop out, shimmering electric blues tipped with daisy yellows. Strands seemed to fade then stream back together as they watched, like clockwork, like it was some living thing. It was a shifting river of lights as far as they could see.

 

“Aurora Borealis,” she said.

 

“Never saw it back on Earth,” Liam breathed.

 

“Me neither.”

 

“I never stayed planetside anywhere long enough to see something like this,” Vetra said.

 

So many questions about the science of it came to mind, but she hushed the thoughts for now, thinking of talking to Suvi later. For now, however, she told herself that she would simply _be_.  It was empowering and humbling all at once to know that they had brought color to this world again.

 

“I’m glad I get to see this with both of you,” she said.

 

Cursing herself for having such tall friends, she reached up as far as she could and put her arms around Vetra and Liam’s shoulders. In turn, she then felt each of their hands wrap around her. They said nothing more for a long time, and she simply continued to watch the dancing sky with a grin glowing across her face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not personally hard of hearing, and it's important to me that I characterize and display it correctly with Aphelia, so I'm always open to criticisms and recommendations! Thanks again for reading


	4. A New Normal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another long chapter! It has a scene from canon that I altered for their story -- hope that's not cheating.
> 
> I'd like to thank the users FidgetyWriter and ariatl. Your kind words have really encouraged me to finish this story, and I hope it doesn't disappoint!!

It was now a couple days since the reset of the vault, and they were ready to launch their mission to rescue the Moshae. However, the novelty of the new face of Voeld was beginning to wear off as she discovered that it was _still_ only marginally warmer than the vacuum of space. The aurora was stunning, and, sure, she could take her helmet off outside without instantly catching hypothermia, but she _had_ caught a cold all the same. Her throat ached like something had been caught in it and forcibly clawed its way out; her skin was pale and clammy.

 

And, on top of that, she stumbled into a fight with an Architect, coughing between orders. After what felt like hours (but was, in fact, 37 minutes and 41 seconds, according to SAM), the metal beast practically imploded, its tentacles whipping through the air with shocking flexibility before it fell, eerily silent, onto the ice before them.

 

She leapt over the wrecked debris of a walkway, a railing just barely poking out of a bank of snow, and made it to the part of the Architect she wanted to call its head. It was still pulsing with a deep red energy, and, reaching out, felt herself connect with it.

 

Interfacing with it was a different feeling than with the vaults; the vibrations from the Architect were less like a song than a march, feeling tight with staccatos before shutting off gracelessly and rocketing into the blossoming greens of the atmosphere.

 

Once they returned to the Nomad, she asked Jaal to drive, which he readily accepted with only a few questions about steering. Too tired to care about how reckless of a driver the Angara was, she threw herself into the backseat, and fell asleep sprawled across Liam's lap.

 

When she woke up, the Nomad was not moving, the low rumble of its motors completely absent. She snapped up for a moment, panicking that she had somehow lost all of her hearing, before she heard Liam exclaim “Woah! Hello!” Looking around for a moment, she saw that Jaal was gone, and they were parked beside the Tempest. Turning back to Liam, she cocked her head at him in question.

 

He laughed. “Don’t worry, we’ve only been parked for about ten minutes.”

 

Yawning loudly in response, she asked weakly  “Why didn’t you wake me?”

 

“Becaauuusee,” he drew out the word playfully, “you deserve sleep whenever you can get it. Also, it was pretty cute, and I thought it’d be a crime to disturb you.”

 

“Cop instinct still in tact, then, good” she said, turning away from him to retrieve her helmet from the floor of the vehicle. She slammed it on again, unnecessarily, before he could see her blush.

 

Not entirely awake (or thawed) once inside, she took a shower so hot it was miraculous the water was still in liquid form, and let herself boil for a few minutes.

 

So she found herself, at about 20:13 according to the Tempest’s day cycle, pacing back and forth in her quarters, a towel wrapped around her body as water seemed to methodically drip from the tips of her messy hair and onto the polished floor beneath her. Tapping quickly on her datapad, she nearly lost her footing and slipped, but managed to catch herself. Barely even pausing, she pressed send and tossed the datapad onto her bed where it bounced pitifully on the sheets.

 

 

> **Tea? Regular spot??**
> 
> **To: Suvi Anwar**
> 
> **From: Aphelia Ryder**
> 
>  
> 
> **I’m cold and grumpy and Cora told me to stop stealing all the hot water in the showers.**
> 
>  
> 
> **But I would love a cup and conversation? Please please please I’ll bring blankets and name a colony after you, probably.**

 

It was starting to become a regular thing with her and Suvi, getting tea (or some sort of substitute, because there was only so much of it). On their first night aboard the Tempest, she had been restlessly fiddling around with her guns at the loadout station. There had been a cautious knock at the door before she had opened it to see Suvi, smiling sheepishly and holding a tray with a still-steaming kettle and two cups. Taking it in, Aphelia had smiled for one of the first times since becoming Pathfinder. After a few minutes of awkward wandering, they found themselves sitting on the suspended walkway just beyond the bridge, dangling their legs over the edge (at one point nearly kicking an unfortunate Gil in the face) and telling stories.

 

And after the day she had had, she wanted something like that again.

 

Shivering slightly despite the heating of the ship, she moved to her bedside, tapping on the music system to _whatever,_ desiring nothing but _sound_ to fill the silence _._ Ever since the vault was fixed, she almost missed the wind on Voeld, because the dead silence that replaced it was unnerving. Swaying carelessly to the upbeat track she couldn’t name, she made her way, slipping and sliding, to her wardrobe. As she yanked open the barely-filled drawers, her towel began to slip, and she grasped at it awkwardly, just barely stopping it from hitting the ground. Shrugging, she tossed it onto the dresser.

 

She was less dancing and more bouncing for the sheer sake of kinetic energy to ward off the cold as she dug through various Initiative regulated clothes, settling on the thickest sweater and pants she had. Pulling on the sweater and a pair of underwear, she noticed a bright pulse of blue reflected on the ceiling and turned around.

 

“Pathfinder, you have -” SAM began.

 

“Thanks, I’m on it,” she croaked, wincing at the scratchy sound of her own voice. Quickly pulling on her pants, she hopped slightly, adjusting them as she walked back over to her bed. Sitting down on the edge, she unlocked the datapad and opened her inbox.

 

>   
> 
> 
> **RE: Tea? Regular spot??**
> 
> **To: Aphelia Ryder**
> 
> **From: Suvi Anwar**
> 
>  
> 
> **Hello dear Cold and Grumpy,**
> 
>  
> 
> **Tea sounds perfect! I’ll step away from the labs for a moment to warm the kettle. I have a few hand-painted mugs from back home, and I've been hoping for a chance to share them with you. Victory over another Architect deserves a celebration, I think.**
> 
>  
> 
> **I’ll be there in ten!!!**
> 
>  
> 
> **Suvi**
> 
>  
> 
> **P.S. I ask only out of curiosity, of course: can you actually name the colonies?**

 

She silently thanked Suvi and God and Elcor Hamlet and Blasto and whoever else there was to thank, and shot a quick message expressing her gratitude. Yawning, she nearly put the datapad down, then paused, considering for a moment before deciding on another message she wanted to send.

 

 

> **Thinking about floating away**
> 
> **To: Liam Kosta**
> 
> **From: Aphelia Ryder**
> 
>  
> 
> **Hey Kosta,**
> 
>  
> 
> **What was that (Elcor) Shakespeare line you thought of in the gravity well?**
> 
>  
> 
> **Inquiring minds would like to know.**
> 
>  

* * *

 

 

“- so my face goes white as a ghost, but I'm still trying to trick him. I raise fifty credits before Gil tells me I have almost as bad a Poker face as _you_!” Suvi scoffed, scandalized.

 

“ _What_!” Aphelia choked on her tea, Suvi’s mug  clutched tightly in both of her hands, the outer planets of Earth's solar system painted on it (with some artistic license). The comforter from her bed was draped around both women like a too-large cape, the tea tray squeezed between them, almost appearing to be floating on the glass of the walkway. Already she felt better than earlier, lighter and relaxed. A pleasant warmth was settling in her as the laughter seemed to bubble out of her.

 

“Oh, that’s not even the good part!” Suvi took a sip out of her own mug, similarly decorated with the inner planets, the handle a bright orange to represent the sun. “I’ve been working on little lies with Kallo all day -” She raised her voice, speaking into the comms, “Hello from the hallway, Kallo.”

 

“You know, I can hear you laughing through the door,” the Salarian’s high-pitched voice said, slightly tinny over the comm. “Hi, Ryder.”

 

“Hi Kallo!” she said merrily, voice cracking slightly, throat still sore despite the tea..

 

“I was telling her about how I’m practicing to play cards against Gil again,” Suvi informed him. “Were any of my lies believable? Be honest with me.”

 

“Not for a single second,” he replied curtly.

 

“It’s that nosy photographic memory of his,” Suvi  leaned towards her, as if explaining top secret information. “He knows too much.”

 

“The comms are still on, Suvi.”

 

“I know!” she retorted, but grimaced slightly.

 

“You _are_ a bad liar,” Aphelia chimed in, a grin splitting her face.

 

“Not you too!” the science officer was blushing.

 

“Kallo, what’s the best lie she told?”

 

A beat, then the click of the comms. “We had been discussing the best route through the Scourge to Aya again after you assault this Kett facility tomorrow. Suddenly, she turned to me, the most serious I have ever seen her, and she said ‘I think Ryder’s Pyjak is ugly.’”

 

“That’s not how it happened!” Suvi was hunched over, head in her hands.

 

“My _Pyjak_?”

 

“Photographic memory!”

 

“Wait...do you think he’s ugly?” Aphelia spoke quieter,  feeling slightly wounded.

 

“No, Ryder!” Suvi said. “It’s a lie!”

 

“Oh, right.”

 

“Last week, the Pyjak licked Suvi’s console on the bridge, and she asked if he could taste its mineral composition,” Kallo explained. Aphelia could feel her grin growing, tongue between her teeth as she stared at Suvi, relishing the story. “After this, she proceeded to call him a ‘handsome little devil.’”

 

“ _Little devil?_ ” She mouthed at Suvi, who pulled the blanket over her head in a further attempt to hide her face. Cora walked beneath them, eyeing the blanketed mass with amusement before turning into the bathroom.

 

“It’s not an incorrect statement, Ryder,” she said from beneath the blanket. “I’ve just never spent too much time around living animals. I’m more used to studying flora than fauna, is all.” Her expression softened. Before she could say anything, the other woman added, “Speaking of which, I’ve been exposing the little guy to various Heleus plant samples to see which are edible, and he hasn’t reacted negatively to a single sample yet.” She peeked out from under the blanket. “A whole new galaxy, and he’s that adaptable. Isn’t that amazing?”

 

Aphelia’s eyes widened, interested. “Well, they did survive on the sandy ass-end of hell -- Tuchanka.” She thought she could hear a deep grumble somewhere, as if Drack was laughing.

 

Suvi herself looked slightly aghast at the description before giggling. “They weren’t even native to Tuchanka. Just decided to stick around.”

 

“Right, so,” Aphelia paused to down the rest of her tea, the soggy dregs left at the bottom forming a nebula of sorts, “All of us might yet die, but at least Pyjaks will remain to remember us all. Space Monkey Cockroaches of the Universe.” Even though her cup was empty, she raised it dramatically, as if toasting some imagined Pyjak, the real one nowhere to be found.

 

Suvi had pulled the blanket off, her hair raised erratically in a messy orange halo around her head. “I think we’re all going to make it,” she said, suddenly serious. It caught Aphelia off guard before her shoulders relaxed and she smiled gently.

 

“You think so?”

 

“I think there’s a reason we’re here, Ryder. It’s all part of a plan.” Suvi turned away and stared at the wall across from them. Her eyes trailed upwards towards the white and blue insignia of the Andromeda Initiative, and she sighed contentedly. “Despite the rough start, I don’t think it’s a mistake we’re here.”

 

“Me neither.” She was unsure if she could feel the same type of religion Suvi did, but something like purpose had stirred in her since the moment she had heard of the Initiative.

 

They sat in a contented silence for a minute before Suvi turned to her suddenly. “Oh, by the way - I don’t know if you heard - when we were talking back there, and everything, your datapad went off. I think you have new mail, if you need to check it.”

 

She practically tore her sweater off as she retrieved the device from her front pocket. Sure enough, she had new mail. Deleting a few spam messages, she tapped impatiently on the one she had been waiting on.

 

 

> **RE: Thinking about floating away**
> 
> **To: Aphelia Ryder**
> 
> **From: Liam Kosta**
> 
>  
> 
> **Ha-ha! I want you to guess. Find that path of words, Pathfinder.**
> 
>  
> 
> **Here's a hint: This play is close to home.**

 

She rolled her eyes, biting back a smile. Her face was tingling with a blush, and she turned away so Suvi couldn’t see.

 

 

> **RE: RE: Thinking about floating away - AND FIGURING THIS OUT**
> 
> **To: Liam Kosta**
> 
> **From: Aphelia Ryder**
> 
>  
> 
> **Boldly: Game on.**

  


Clearing her throat, she threw on her best neutral expression before shoving the datapad back in her sweater pocket.

 

“Hey Suvi, do you know any Shakespeare?” She tried to not look too eager, casually tucking her half-dried hair behind her ear.

 

“Off the top of my head?” She asked over the rim of her mug, the swirling and angry clouds of Venus painted just below her nose. “I’m afraid I don't, but I was always fond of _The Winter’s Tale._ I like that it didn’t have to end tragically.”

 

Aphelia was unfamiliar with that play, but found the answer charming. She’d have to see if there was an Elcor production of it sometime, maybe ask Liam if he wanted to watch it with her, curled up on that godawful couch she would never admit she actually liked. Catching her mind straying (and to _him_ again of all places), she pulled her legs up and crossed them, giving all of her attention to the other woman.  “I’m not familiar with that one. Actually not that well versed on Shakespeare at all.”

 

“I’m certainly no expert. Best I’ve got with experience is that I was in my primary school’s production of the Scottish Play.  Witch #2.” Suvi giggled slightly, and seemed to glow with a slight pride at these words.

 

“The...Scottish Play?” Aphelia asked, feeling it was a euphemism she didn’t pick up on.

 

“Oh, you know…” Suvi trailed off. “The one with three witches, and they make a prophecy about murdering the king. In the end, I suppose two kings are murdered.” She was still holding her mug absentmindedly, gesticulating as she thought over it, providing any descriptor that came to mind. “And...Oh, what’s the line? ‘Burnham wood comes to Dunsinane.’”

 

It was as if a gear had shifted in her mind and she exclaimed, louder than she meant to, “ _Macbeth!_?”

 

“Shhh!” Suvi said, equally as loud, practically jumping on her, free hand grasping at the edge of the blanket which hung around Aphelia’s shoulders like a shawl. “Shh, yes, that’s the one!” For a moment they eyed each other before Suvi, mortified, withdrew her now white-knuckled fist from the blanket around her shoulders. “I am so sorry for the dramatics, but…”

 

Realization dawned on her. Then disbelief. Finally, it was followed by a near howl of laughter that dissolved into a fit of coughing. “Suvi! Are you actually one of those people who believes the _name_ of the show is _cursed_?”

 

“Maybe!” She said defensively, indignantly, sitting up straighter.

 

That made Aphelia laugh harder, her breaths coming in wheezes. She placed the mug down on the tray still stashed between the two of them and ran her hand over her own stomach, pleasantly surprised to rediscover the feeling of laughing until her sides hurt.

 

“Sorry,” she panted, “Sorry, Suvi. That’s just the...best thing I’ve heard in awhile. I almost forgot about that damn curse. I remembered because my brother believed - believes in it, too.”

 

“I know so little about the universe, and sure there’s no science to support it,” Suvi said seriously. “But I wouldn’t have believed half of what I’ve seen if I hadn’t seen it. Who am I to say something’s not real?”

 

“That’s...an incredibly thoughtful response for a strange topic.” Her laughing had subsided, but she still felt warmed by it, the glow of a simple happiness.

 

“Thank you, Ryder. I think.”

 

“You’re welcome, Witch #2.”

 

Suvi pulled a face. “ _Your_ name is a bit Shakespearean, _Ophelia_.”

 

For a moment, Aphelia simply stared, confused at the pronunciation before she made multiple realizations at once.One of which was how _close to home_ that name  was. “HAMLET! Suvi you genius!”

 

“Has no one ever pointed that out to you?” Suvi asked, perplexed.

 

“You know,” she replied, “I think someone just did.” Unconsciously, her right hand strayed to the datapad, clutching it.

 

The other woman was eyeing her with cautious interest, the gentle blue of her eyes searching. She leaned forward slightly and said in a whisper “Was it Liam?”

 

Feeling herself flush, her mouth dropped open foolishly. It caught her completely off guard, and for a moment she wanted to follow the lead of her Shakespearean counterpart and _drown_ before she realized the absurdity of the moment. She was sitting on a ship she was essentially captain of, hiding under blankets with another grown woman talking about... _crushes_? It felt so uncomfortably preteen, as if she had just gotten her first bra.

 

What was there, really, she asked herself, to be uncomfortable about? Once she got over herself and her own dramatics, her own impulsivity met with resistance towards commitment, there was nothing to cause shame. It was a cliche in a galaxy that did not know them yet, so maybe she would be pardoned the literary offense, and maybe that's why it all felt so new: she had never known anyone like Liam, never been _known_ this way before.

 

So, looking straight at Suvi, perched eagerly beside her, she felt the corners of her mouth turn upwards and said simply, “Yes, it was.”

 

“Awwww!” Suvi said, grinning and humming delightedly. “I thought so.”

 

“Am I that obvious?” She asked, amused.

 

“Yes and no. I didn't notice until Gil joked about you two, and now I see it everywhere.”

 

Aphelia imagined for a moment the ship filled with gossip about them, little comments and laughter and, hell, probably betting pools of some kind. It felt strange, that this internal whirlpool of emotions was possibly visible to everyone around her. And then, she abruptly came to what she knew was the same conclusion Liam had had: she didn't care.

 

“You know what?” She said. “Good.”

 

Suvi looked at her incredulously, but kept smiling. “So, are you two a...thing?”

 

She snorted. “We're _something,_ anyway.” With a shrug, she added, “I don't know. Guess I'll find out one of these days.”

 

The other woman’s expression softened and she placed a hand on Aphelia’s shoulder. “Take care of yourself, Aphelia.”

 

“Now where would be the fun in that?” she asked, mouth quirking up. Uncomfortable at the concern, she looked down at her lap, much quieter, “Thank you.”

 

Letting go of her shoulder, the blanket sagged off of both of them and fell in waves to the floor, and Suvi hummed slightly. She pulled her legs up from over the edge and began to stand up. “I should probably get back to the labs. I’ve got so much still to analyze. And I’m guessing after tomorrow I’ll have a mountain of work.” Stooping to pick up the tray, she added, “I’ll forward you my data, but not until tomorrow because I know you’ll stay up reading ‘em, and you need rest.”

 

“Promise I’ll just read your conclusions tonight?”

 

“No.” Her footsteps tapped with each step on the glass, no matter how light on her feet Suvi was.

 

“You know me so well. Good night Suvi, thanks for the tea.”

 

“You’re a dear friend to me, Ryder,” the other woman said, glancing over her shoulder from the end of the hallway and appearing to glow from the lighting above her. “Thanks for the company. And good luck tomorrow!”

 

It was a miracle, really, that of all the people in the Initiative, and all the people in _two_ galaxies, she had landed on a ship with exactly the kind of people she needed. Some of the more poetic members of the crew would call it fate, while others would call it their charming personalities and charisma. Still others would argue it wasn't so rosy, but in her opinion, maybe it could be.

 

Lexi exited the med bay beneath her and, without even looking up from the datapad she held as she crossed to the crew quarters, reminded her to take her vitamin supplements. Aphelia  gave a non-committal “yeah, yeah” in response before coughing hoarsely. “That's exactly why,” the doctor said before the door slid shut behind her.

 

She pulled the blanket up around her again, allowing herself one more moment of reprieve. Closing her eyes, she smiled, imagining what else Heleus had in store. And maybe when they one day went beyond Heleus, (it had to happen, she felt that her borders were always expanding with the universe) her brother would be awake to see it, too.

 

She stood up finally, the blanket dragging across the floor like a bulky cape as she knocked on the door to the bridge, yelled “G’night Kallo! And Peebee, if you're in there!” There was a muffled reply, but she didn't wait to hear it, already climbing down the ladder, the blanket falling unceremoniously to the floor so she wouldn't have to awkwardly hold onto it.

 

When she fell back onto her bed, fully clothed, she removed her datapad, checking it once more before committing herself to sleep. Sure enough, there was a message waiting for her.

 

 

> **A study guide.**
> 
> **To: Aphelia Ryder**
> 
> **From: Liam Kosta**
> 
>  
> 
> **Embarrassed: Almost forgot to give you your study materials. Want it to be a fair game and all that.**
> 
>  
> 
> **With a hint of flirtation: Let me know if you want a study buddy.**
> 
>  
> 
> **[Liam has attached a list of media entitled “Willie Shakes.” It includes the full Elcor Shakespeare collection, as well as various other vid adaptations from over the centuries. He has also included the text scripts of each play.]**

 

* * *

 

Twenty four hours later, and she wondered if laughter like the night before was an insult. Exaltation. This felt like the part in a Shakespeare play when both character and audience realize it is a tragedy.

 

She wasn’t a fool. She had known there might be things in Heleus that would horrify her, but this was different and unimaginable. It had happened right in front of them, staring through the glass like it was a screen and this was a vid, and all they could do was scream and listen to Jaal’s screams. She had never heard a sound like that before; her closest approximation was a howl, loose and overflowing with ancient agony. It was playing in her mind back to the Resistance Base and then back to the Tempest.

 

The aching she felt in her core had punctuated every wound and soft spot in her flesh. Everything felt too heavy. Her body sagged like something deflated. She said nothing for hours. Jaal, on the other hand, was tightly wound as if he had grown taller, more indomitable. He was stoic, but there was something smoldering beneath.

 

Once through the Tempest Airlock, she tossed her helmet aside, hearing it cause a small series of bangs as it landed on the workbench and collided with various tools. Wordlessly, she turned to Jaal and embraced him, arms wrapping around his middle because she could not reach to his shoulders. It was as if he had been anticipating it, hoping on it; he melted immediately into the hug. They remained as such until the initial torrent of emotion passed and she felt able to stand on her own.

 

Jaal thanked her when he released her, a gentleness returning to his expression. She wanted to say something profound or healing, but found no words at all.

 

She showered. She dressed. She ate. She downed several painkillers, warding off the slight injuries of the day and the continued traces of her cold. Lexi asked to give her a physical examination, but she refused, saying she would the next day. Suvi offered to send a report to Nexus Command for her, which she could follow up on when she was ready.

 

She put together a new biotic amp, determined to sharpen her abilities. Finally, she was pacing around her quarters, the fatigue replaced with white hot anger and frustration at her own uselessness. But she didn’t cry.

 

Pressing a hand against the broad windows, she expected her breath to fog up on the glass, but it didn’t. The Tempest’s environmental controls were doing their job. Despite the darkness, the vast fields of ice seemed to glow, dimly reflecting the Aurora that still danced above. Deep striations branched out in the bluish white of the field in front of her, looking like ghostly trees.

 

They would fly out to Aya in the morning, she had been assured by Kallo. For now, she would have to look at Voeld and remember the horrors that had been whited out by the storms.

 

It felt so deeply unfair she wanted to stamp her foot and complain. She winced to think what Alec would have thought of such displays of weakness. _Who cares what he would think_ , she thought viciously for a second, _that hypocrite couldn’t process the death of his wife._

 

(Scott had cried at the small memorial they had held for Ellen back on Earth, jaw clenched fruitlessly, fighting against it as the tears poured down his cheeks anyway.She held her brother’s hand, both of them nearly squeezing the other’s beyond feeling. He eventually covered the back of her hand with his other, overflowing with grief that he didn’t know what to do with. She knew he would never admit it, but he - like Dad - had been hoping for some sort of miracle.  

 

Alec had not cried, or would not let them see him cry. Whichever it was, she thought it was cowardly. Her brother shared so much of that weathered and disgraced N7’s face, but he was so much gentler.)

 

She shook her head, as if physically banishing the memories. With a deep breath, she refocused herself. Exaltation was not about her small and broken family.

 

But it was breaking up families - big, wonderful, _strong_ families - and turning them against each other. In the past few weeks, she had admired the Angara for their ability to survive. This seemed to mock their biggest strength; they survived, but as the monsters they fought.

 

Was that survival? Scientists and philosophers alike could debate it for decades, she was sure. But these were real lives, not a mind game. She tore away from the window and continued pacing.

 

Over the next hour, she tried several times to compose an audio log for Scott, having not sent one since first arriving on Voeld. Every time, she erased the recording, feeling inauthentic.

 

Instead, she messaged Suvi and told her to forward a copy of her report to the Nexus, deciding she would send her own report now. The facts were easy; her mind was sharp with them. It was easier to detach and share this information in the hopes that it could be useful for some future form of defense. There was less of a sense of bleeding out uselessly with her sympathy.

 

Another hour passed before she had a log that she felt satisfied with. With dull eyes, she watched it process and finally send, making sure to include both Suvi and Lexi as recipients.

 

The Tempest’s day cycle had restarted and it was around 0015 hours when she realized that she _did_ want to talk to someone. One person specifically.

 

 

> **Misery loves company**
> 
> **To: Liam Kosta**
> 
> **From: Aphelia Ryder**
> 
>  
> 
> **Any chance you’re up and feel like talking?**

 

She waited for a few minutes, sitting on the edge of her bed and tapping her foot against the floor restlessly.

 

 

> **RE: Misery loves company**
> 
> **To: Aphelia Ryder**
> 
> **From: Liam Kosta**
> 
>  
> 
> **Storage. Come down whenever.**

 

Practically sprinting to the door, she walked as quickly past the crew quarters and med bay as she could, hoping no one would stop or even notice her. She didn’t believe for a moment that the ship was sleeping, but no one was in sight. Brushing her hand over her jacket, she felt a familiar weight over her chest pocket; it was something she held close beating over her heart. Knocking on the door to storage, it clanged but she heard a muffled shout of “Yeah, come in!”

 

When she entered, the lights were dimmed and multiple datapads were strewn across the makeshift coffee table. His vid screen was turned completely off as opposed to its usual home screen, a default image of the Nexus that looked more luscious than it had ever actually been in Heleus.

 

Liam himself was on the floor doing rapid pushups, shirtless again, which would normally distract her, but she couldn’t even care to register it. He didn’t stop to greet her beyond a simple “Hey.”

 

“Want me to sit on your back? Make it harder?” The humor felt wrong in her mouth today.

 

“Might as well.” He grunted as he forced himself up again. “Just about how everything is going.”

 

Part of her wanted to throw off her leather jacket and join him, do anything to work off that restless energy that she could be _doing_ something. She didn’t though, but watched him for a moment before blurting out “So I take it you feel as shitty as I do.”

 

“Yeah, think I do.”

 

“I’m just - “ her voice cracked. She swallowed before finding the words again. “I’m _angry_.”

 

“Hold onto that,” he said fiercely, not even pausing in his exercise. She lowered herself to sit on the floor beside him, legs crossed and fists clenching and unclenching as she watched him, sweat beading and rolling down his back and arms. “Keeps me going.”

 

He exhaled loudly before sucking in a breath. However, he didn’t slow down. If anything he seemed to be going faster. “It started young. Smart little kid. Got angry a lot.” She felt a slight pang in her chest as she imagined him, cheeks rounded with youth and taking on the world, bitterly disappointed in it again and again. “Side effect of giving a shit.”

 

He glanced over at her and seemed to soften slightly, but kept going. Once again, she didn’t know what to say. So she voiced her fears. “Do you think we should have destroyed the facility? Even if it meant letting those people die?”

 

“No!” He shook his head, expression contorting into some unreadable emotion. “I don’t know.” At last, he stopped, mid-pushup, and turned over so he was sitting on the sleek metal floor, leaning against the edge of the couch and facing her. His face was shiny with sweat as his breathing stabilized. “Never was much of a believer in that ‘needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few’ bullshit. But…” he trailed off.

 

“It would feel real good to know they can’t do that anymore, at least not on Voeld.”

 

“Yeah,” he nodded. “We kicked ‘em in the teeth. Great. But the Kett steal what people _are._ ” His voice rose again passionately. “Everyone should have a stake in that.” He groaned and threw his head back against the couch, closing his eyes.

 

“I genuinely can’t think of anything more horrifying.” And before she knew it, the words were spilling out of her, every worry and thought she had had in the past few hours: “And how long have they been doing this? It can’t just be Angara. How many species were eaten alive by the Kett?!? How did this even _start_?”

 

“Does it matter?” Liam asked with a shrug. “We have to _end it_ . We have to make this - Andromeda - work. For _everyone._ No exceptions. No fear. No ‘ends justify the means.’ No goddamn outsiders!”

 

She let his words fall in the space between them and found herself nodding. “We need to get everyone together to do this, to work together, no prioritizing _anyone_ , or nothing will change,” she said firmly.

 

He opened his eyes at that and looked at her, relieved that she understood where he was coming from. “Exactly. Just -” he shook his head again. “You don’t stop people being afraid of outsiders by making the outsider identical to you.”

 

“I think I finally see the point of you and Jaal swapping armor,” she said quietly.

 

The corner of Liam’s mouth turned upwards slightly. Both of them seemed to have deflated to an extent, the air around them calming to something somber. “Mum used to tell us we’d be better people if we hung around people who were nothing like us. So she laughed and said I misinterpreted her when I became a cop.”

 

“She say you misinterpreted her further before you went into cryo?” she said teasingly, unable to resist.

 

It drew a smile out of him, and something near laughter. “After the first shock, she said I must have at least listened to _something_ she told me growing up.” He looked down, jaw clenching. “You’d have liked her.”

 

“I know I would have,” she said, trying to muster up a smile.

 

“Can I show you something?” he asked, leaning forward. When she nodded, he stood up, and for a moment she wondered where he was taking her. However, he was only getting up to sit on the couch. Without saying anything, he let her sit down first, scooting to the far side so he would be closest to her good ear.

 

When they were seated, he asked, “Did you bring anything? From the Milky Way?”

 

Confused, she replied, “One or two things. But the weight limits were real strict.”

 

“I know. That’s why I made ‘arrangements.’” She eyed him curiously as he activated his omni tool, washing them both out in a harsh orange light. An image of an old Earth car flickered to life on a semi-translucent screen projected above his arm. She leaned in closer, looking it over with curiosity. She had never known much about cars, because she had never really lived on Earth, but there was something romantic about them, like a good old vid. Liam almost laughed as he showed it to her. “Proper petrol burner. Twentieth century. British, from when that mattered.”

 

She looked up at him with a gentle smile, and when he met her eyes he smiled too, and lingered for a moment before turning back to the image. “My whole family worked on it together. Weekends - “ he chuckled. “Like those are a thing in space.”

 

He had never talked about his family much before. She wished it were under better circumstances, but she was so interested in this quaint little planetside life - one she had never had - that for a moment she was almost able to forget the crushing weight of everything.

 

“Know what we did?” He asked it cheekily, his face glowing with the nostalgia. He paused for effect. “Friends in HUSTL set us up good. They ‘borrowed’ us a transport right before I went into cryo. And me and my father and mother loaded _our_ car into it, and pointed it at Andromeda.”

 

Her eyes widened in surprise, but she still wasn’t sure where he could be going with this. “It’s a nice gesture,” she said delicately, “but you know you won’t see it again.”

 

It was his turn to look surprised - not at the information, but at her reaction. He laughed like it was obvious, saying “Oh, it’s - it’s a couple million years away at standard light.” He leaned closer to her, the smile still stretching across his features. “The important thing is, it’s coming. And always will be.”

 

She looked at him fondly, amazed at his idealism. And it seemed his family had shared that outlook and all of its associated impracticality. While she couldn't quite understand it, she knew she never wanted him to change.

 

Maybe by sensing her hesitation or hearing it all said out loud, his face fell in an instant. “I don't know what that means.”

 

Everything she could think to say felt like an empty reassurance, or something so obviously, hideously not true. “Guess it means that a few million years down the line, some Angara-Human-Turian descendent kid is gonna have the _coolest_ ride to prom,” she quipped. When he didn’t have an immediate comeback, her stomach clenched and she shifted uncomfortably.

 

Slowly, she reached out and placed her hand on his arm, fingers poking through the image of his car. She cleared her throat and said gently, “I think it also means you had people who really cared about you. And...you still do.” Looking up to meet his gaze, she nearly gasped when she saw that the whites of his eyes were red and bothered, his smile wobbling. “I just need something to feel normal.”

 

Snapping her gaze away, she tried to look anywhere but at him, chest expanding with too much feeling to process. She squeezed her eyes shut, stepping out of her heart for the smallest of beats. Her hand left his arm and strayed to her jacket absentmindedly. “Do you want to know what I brought from the Milky Way?”

 

He didn’t say anything, but made a slight noise of assent, and she could feel his eyes on her. “Now, you _know_ I’m not the most sentimental person.” She reached a hand down the front of her jacket to a small interior pocket she had stitched herself just above the left breast of the coat. Grasping a smooth, disk-like object only a couple inches across, she removed it deftly, closing her fist around it with a hint of gold catching the light.

 

She opened her palm before him, revealing a small trinket that almost looked like a locket. The front was scuffed, etched with an intricate relief that depicted a topographical map of the Earth. With her thumb, she clicked a button just above the North Pole, and it sprung open on a hinge below the South Pole to reveal an old compass.

 

The pointer teetered lazily with the movements of her hand, directionless. The glass  had a crack splitting it diagonally, and it was opaque near the edges, but she wouldn’t ever get it fixed. That wasn’t the point.

 

“I told you Dad was a romantic,” she said fondly. “He collected stuff like this, the technology of so many different cultures. When Scott and I were fourteen, he took us on a week long hike through a small stretch of the Rockies, but didn’t want us to use any modern navigation tools. He wanted us to be able to rely on our own wits, and remind us of this starry-eyed vision he had of the past.” She rolled her eyes, trying to fight off the sudden tightness in her chest. “So he gave me this, and Scott an old sextant, and we somehow made it out alive.”

 

(Some part of her believed it was her fondest memory of her father. She and Scott had laid awake each night and made up stories for the constellations above them. The worse storyteller would have to set up camp the next day. Alec had surprised them, offering a few outrageous tales of his own. It was the only time she remembered her father making her _laugh_.)

 

“Anyway,” she said after a pause, closing and re-opening the compass. “It’s useless here. We’re kind of really _really_ far away from Earth’s magnetic poles.” She smirked slightly, placing the compass on the crate in front of them. “But I guess I keep the damn thing _because_ it won’t work. It’s...oddly comforting, like a reminder of how far we’ve all come. And that I always have to find new methods to reorient myself and navigate new ranges of stars.” She finally had the strength to meet his gaze again, and said firmly, “Out here our only normal is the abnormal.”

 

“Maybe.” He closed his eyes and nodded once before leaning forward and rubbing his face in his hands. “I’ll be fine, you know,” he said, staring at the ground. “Just need to cry it out and get over it. But I don’t need you worryi-”

 

“Liam. It’s okay.”

 

He looked over at her, eyes soft. He looked so handsome in the uneven light. The room was left with a silence that felt like a question where each of them seemed to be asking what the other would do. It was Liam who broke the stillness, reaching over and taking her hand in his. She became aware of how clammy and rough her hands were, hoping that wouldn’t bother him. His own hands were so warm and sturdy, his thumb rubbing a circle below her knuckle. God, she had never seen him so still, so _raw_ -

 

“I hope _this_ becomes normal,” he said finally, voice rough with emotion.

 

And suddenly, she let out a sob she didn’t even know she had been holding onto. It was like he broke a dam in her, an immense pressure lifting off of shoulders as they shook just slightly. She had not cried like this in years, since before Mom had died, and yet she couldn’t even pin a single reason for this outburst. However, even in her erratic crying, she was fairly contained. She did not make herself bigger in her agony. The tears flowed freely down her cheeks, wetting her mouth, which turned downwards in a pout.

 

At that, she watched his composure crumble too, and he cried with her, the tears marking visible tracks across his face, some of them getting caught in his stubble before falling.

 

And so they sat there for several minutes, crying together on his shitty couch, and somehow _laughing_ through it, too. Feeling daring, she reached out with her free hand and cupped his face, wetting her palm. He leaned into it, before his own free hand splayed out lightly at the back of her neck.

 

Ever so gently, he pulled her towards him, and they both sobered once again. He rested his forehead against hers, and she shut her eyes, letting go until their breathing synced. He leaned in closer, his stubble scratchy on her skin and his lips ghosting her cheek.

 

She pulled back to look at him, cradling his face in both of her hands. Bowing his head, she pressed a kiss to his forehead, lingering then as she kissed his cheekbone, his nose, and, finally, the corner of his mouth, which quirked upwards at the touch.

 

And then they were kissing in a way they had never done before. It began slow, wet and deeply intimate. They seemed to swell on some joint tide with their breaths, and then his mouth opened and the kiss deepened. One hand was on the back of her neck while the other slid lower, beneath her jacket, to rest on her lower back.

 

It felt so deliriously _good._ She pulled her legs up onto the couch without pausing once, and they both struggled to pull her jacket off. After repeated flailing of her arms to no avail, one of her arms stuck in the tight sleeve, they broke apart, giggling. Throwing it carelessly onto the floor she launched herself at him again, hands moving from his face to discover his bare chest.

 

As her mind begged for more and more, she felt his hands go to her hips, teasing the sliver of skin revealed there, and she stalled. It was as if she was suddenly watching herself from the outside. This wasn’t how she wanted intimacy with him to begin.

 

She snapped back and practically jumped away from him, panting and pushing strands of her hair out of her face. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly at his look of confusion. “Not - now. Not. Today. I -”

 

Looking up at the ceiling, she searched for the words. “We’re both...vulnerable.” Cringing at her own word choice, she looked down to him again. He was confused but not protesting. “Right now, I mean. I don’t think the first time we...do anything, really, should be when we’re like this.” She hesitated and found that her hands were shaking. “Am I...making any sense?”

 

Liam nodded reluctantly. He cleared his throat and managed a small smile. “You are, Aphelia. And I agree.”

 

She let out a sigh of relief, then asked with a strange sort of sheepishness “Can I hug you?”

 

He answered by hugging her first, arms strong and comforting around her. She threw her arms around his neck and rested the side of her face against his collarbone.

 

As she considered this...frontier at the place where their two selves met, she remembered a quote she had read while skimming Liam’s “study guide” the night before. It felt so long ago now, but she called up the words with a self-satisfied smirk. “Doubt thou the stars are fire, doubt thou the -”

 

“What?” he asked, and she could feel his chest rumble with a laugh. That wasn’t the response she wanted. Pulling back, she looked at him quizzically. “I was quoting Hamlet,” she said. “I’m trying to figure out that secret quote of yours.”

 

“In Hamlet?”

 

“Well,” she said. “I thought ‘close to home’ might be a reference to _O_ phelia, since it’s so close to _A_ phelia.”

 

Liam threw his head back laughing, and he was grinning for the first time that night. “You always look for the hardest answer possible, don’t you?”

 

She shoved him playfully, biting back her own smile.

 

“I was just meaning the play _Tempest,_ ” he admitted with another laugh.

 

“Oh my God,” she said, grabbing his pillow from behind her and hiding her face in it.

 

“Points for creativity though,” he teased. “Although, ground rule, _O_ phelia: You’re not allowed to drown.”

 

She threw the pillow at him instead. It smacked him in the face unexpectedly, and it was all very cartoonish as it seemed to slide off of his face and towards the floor in slow motion. It was her turn to laugh, one that turned into a yawn, and she remembered how deeply tired she was.

 

“Hey,” she began, a proposition burning on her tongue, even though it was entirely innocent. “Do you want to sleep with - sleep _in the same bed as_ me?” She shrugged to dispel the awkwardness. “I just think it would be easier for me if you were there.”

 

Liam gave a slight bow. “I would be honored, my lady Ophelia.”

 

“Nevermind. You’re uninvited from my quarters and my ship. And, frankly, this whole galaxy. So pack your bags.”

 

“Shit, but my car’s still a few million years away.”

 

They bickered and laughed down the hallway, undoubtedly waking someone (or everyone) along their way. When they were laying down, facing each other in her bed, however, the jokes died down. Liam raised his hand, four fingers extended flat, to his mouth, then brought them down, pointing at her. She smiled at the sign, closing her eyes before repeating it back to him, aloud. “Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Liam definitely included Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet in his Shakespeare study guide. It is 100% his favorite adaptation.
> 
> Also: I am almost finished with my first playthrough of MEA, and I am really excited for it! I just got the "repeating angel" line, and I can't BELIEVE that before I knew Liam considered Habitat 7 their first date I wrote that Aphelia didn't even know his name the whole time.
> 
> Luckily their other dates have gone better.
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading!!!


	5. Written in the Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll have you know that it is still N7 day in my timezone.
> 
> I'm a bit emotional, finally arriving at the end of this chapter. The longest one. The time he kissed her.
> 
> When I began writing this in March, I didn't know if I would even post this anywhere, thinking it would be a fun project for myself. Now it holds a special place in my heart. Thank you to my new friends I have made through it, and to everyone who reads this fic -- I hope it has been enjoyable.

When she woke up the next morning, the light was still timid, almost bluish as it meandered in through the curving windows. Everything was so gentle and still that for a moment she didn’t dare move or make any sound, afraid that it would burst. The night before was like a groggy, half-remembered nightmare mixed with elements of a dream.

 

But there he was, that dream of hers, tangled up in the sheets beside her, one arm tossed across his face, snoring softly through his open mouth. She watched him, untroubled, as her mind began to fill more and more with things she should do that day. Part of her wanted to jump out of bed, back into the thick of it, a renewed vigor inside of her after the events of the previous day. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the pulse of light across the ceiling from her private terminal. After a spell of indecision, she glanced back to the sleeping man beside her.

 

“Hey, SAM,” she whispered, and Liam stirred but did not wake.  “Don’t let anything disturb me for another...thirty minutes.” And with that, she shifted closer to the warmth of his body and closed her eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

Aya was a beautiful city, even without the thrill of observing it at gunpoint. Suvi had practically scolded her when she had said it was fun the last time. But it felt even better to know that they were all welcome guests there. The Angara’s trust was a thing that was difficult to gain, so she treasured it all the more.

 

She spent hours wandering the markets, observing the goods, the people, and the artwork. The constructed transitioned smoothly into the natural, all of it swooping lines and bright greens and blues.

 

There were moments she felt she might disturb the peace, yelling out that horrifying truth they had learned on Voeld: that all their missing, all their presumed dead were still here, firing at them. She swallowed it down, knowing she was not the person to say it.

 

There were, of course, the wandering eyes and glares from Aya’s more distrustful residents. It was expected. And it felt like nothing new; growing up on the Citadel so soon after humanity’s First Contact had come with its own layers of misunderstanding and bigotry.

 

She once found Suvi half-buried in a planter box, smiling sheepishly with dirt smeared across her cheeks. Gil could often be found near the docks, talking with Angaran engineers, bragging and laughing as they exchanged stories of quick fixes. Drack and Vetra frequented the markets together, getting a feel for trade systems (both mainstream and underground) of the city. Peebee was hardly ever found outside the history center, and every now and then Cora was there, too, quietly reading and observing. It was hard to find a moment with Jaal, as he seemed to always have another person to talk to and another meeting to go to. He was becoming very popular (or notorious, based on who you asked) very fast on Aya, and it was clear to her that he was overwhelmed.

 

And Liam...was up to something. He was always some level of confusing, but this was a different kind. She met him at their bar - cafe? - Tavetaan, they called it. He looked distracted, restless, glancing over her shoulders and then his own. And then he asked her to do some scans for him of a hostile merchant’s goods, mentioning some Angaran contact he had now named Verand.

 

She had stared at him, eyes narrowed in confusion. “Can’t you be upfront with me?”

 

“I’ll explain later?” he said pleadingly. He was poorly masking his calm.

 

“Fine,” she said after a long pause, chair scraping against the stone as she stood up. “You’re buying later.”

 

“Pathfinder, I will buy you a _planet_ if that’s what you want!” he called after her gratefully. “Take a stroll, enjoy the market!”

 

She walked a long curve around the market, making a pointed glance at every stall’s wares and feigning intense interest, pretending to take notes on her omni tool. Finally, she got to the stall SAM had marked per Liam’s request and attempted a scan.

 

Immediately, the scan backfired, a dangerous warbling sound telling her they had been caught.

 

“Not today, Nexus,” she heard a guard growl, and her stomach dropped. Jumping as though burned, she hurried to the edge of the marketplace. There was a pulse of biotics beneath her skin as a wave of anger swept over her. Their friendship with the Angara was too new to wear thin like this.

 

“Liam…” she warned angrily over the comms.

 

His voice came sharp in her ear. “Goddamn it.”

 

“ _What_ is going on?” She practically spit out the words, while still attempting a whisper.

 

“Nothing to worry about,” he said evenly. “Just...come grab a table with me.”

 

She wanted a good explanation for this, especially if it got her in trouble. Something was churning in her stomach, and she hated the feeling of it. She hated feeling angry, especially at him.

 

Meeting him at the bar, she faked a smile, having the itching suspicion that they were being watched. “Pathfinder, you’re good here,” he said calmly as she down, passing her a drink. “We’ll worry about the data another time.”

 

“We? I want to know what exactly we’re in on,” she said firmly. Taking a sip of whatever it was he had bought her and nearly retching at the bitter taste, she asked, “Liam, what’s going on?”

 

“I,uh, figured we should end up somewhere nice and open.” He considered, then raised his hands and slowly pointed at her before spelling out in sign language “watched.” He got all the letters right without pausing to think about them, and she momentarily forgot her anger, touched that he had clearly been practicing.

 

Getting the message, she settled into her seat more, leaning on her hand and facing him so she could look over his shoulder. “I figured as much,” she remarked. Leaning forward, she whispered angrily “Are you getting me in trouble? What was this about, Kosta?”

 

“We’re not in trouble, exactly, but I don’t blame them for being angry,” he said evenly. Even when angry at him, she respected his attempt to understand others. He sighed. “I wanted to get data that would help yields at our outposts. Verand told me what to scan. But I called it off.” He took a swig of his own drink, face twisting in disgust briefly.

 

“Tastes awful, doesn’t it?” She remarked amusedly.

 

He shook his head in disbelief before continuing. “Anyway, I still owe her. But it’s better than pissing off some gouging hard-liner.”

 

Before she could retort _you pissed off_ this _gouging hard-liner_ , he had an apology ready. “Sorry I didn’t clue you in. It’s a security thing.” Hard frustration entered his words when he added, “ _Food_ is a security thing.”

 

“Was this an attempt to copy their methods? Steal secrets? Because we can’t-”

 

“We’re not competing companies,” he said, clearly louder than he meant to. Lowering his voice, he added, “It’s about learning to live here.”

 

She  stared at the countertop, fingers absentmindedly tracing designs in it. She knew he was right, even if he was going about everything wrong. They couldn’t make everyone’s survival a business venture. They couldn’t all be _Tann._ But this…didn’t sit with her any differently. ”There has to be a better way than sneaking around,” she said firmly. “It doesn’t...feel right.”

 

Liam put his hand on her knee, and she looked up at him. “Remember my Tempest freak-out? I _tried_ proper channels. Got blocked by the Angara _and_ the Nexus.” He shrugged. “There’s only so much Jaal can tell us, so I did what we’d do in Crisis Response.”

 

He paused, and she looked at him expectantly. “Bend the rules.”

 

“Okay,” she said quietly. “I get it, Liam. I do.” It wasn’t a lie; she admired his drive for connection, for proactive change and not letting bureaucracy interfere. “But consider that we have just been invited to Aya. The first outsiders in eighty years. We cannot give the Angara reason to distrust us. _Both_ of us deserve better than that.”

 

“I know,” he said. “Their frame of reference are the ultimate users. That’s why - “

 

“Just...tell me,” she continued. “I support you. Just be honest and upfront and don’t blindside me, okay?”

 

He nodded. “Yeah, I’m sorry.”

 

“Do what you need to do,” she reassured him. “I’d be a hypocrite if I said not to take risks…” The corner of her mouth tugged upwards. “Just be honest. Honesty is the best policy, didn’t Shakespeare say that?”

 

“I...don’t think so,” he laughed, shrugging. “More of a primary school slogan, isn’t it?”

 

Shrugging, she laughed, too. “Shows how much I know about Shakespeare.” Taking a sip of her drink and spitting it out, she cried “Oh, I forgot for a second there how bad that is.”

 

“Here, I’ll make it even,” he joked, raising his own glass and taking a huge gulp. Once he finally swallowed it down, he exclaimed, “Ugh, it just doesn't get easier, does it?.”

 

“Not at all,” she agreed. “Neither does figuring out your Shakespeare quote, you know. Can’t believe I’m gonna read all of _The_ _Tempest_ for you.”

 

“If we’re starting with honesty,” he said candidly, “ _I_ haven’t read it. With my quotes, I usually just word search through all the plays.”

 

Aphelia  wondered for a moment what she had actually thought this whole time. “Your entire mystique is gone, Liam,” she said sarcastically, hopelessly. “Here I thought you were Will himself reincarnated.”

 

“I know, I know,” he raised his arms in defense. “Giving up all my secrets before we’ve even had a fifth date.”

 

Her mind went reeling for a moment as she wondered what he considered were the other ones. “Does this count as a date?”

 

“This counts,” he smiled. “Date number four.”

 

“Consider me wooed,” she rolled her eyes. “Although, there is a sort of spy vid type vibe to it.”

 

“Exactly! If only we were in a casino, and all these Angara had Cuban cigarettes.”

 

“We’ve got our secret hand signals figured out, at least,” she nodded. “You’ve been practicing.”

 

“Course I have,” Liam said simply. “I like spending time with  you.”

 

She smiled. “Mutual, Kosta. If you didn’t already know.”

 

His own smile was sheepish. He leaned back, posture finally starting to loosen up. “Feels normal. About time something did.”

 

“I’d toast to that, but…” She grimaced, glancing over at the opaque glasses.

 

“Thank you for _not_ ,” he laughed. Tilting his head slightly, examining her, he said “So...I’ve got an idea for date number five, if you’re interested.”

 

“Try me.”

 

“A vid. No Shakespeare. No Elcor.” He took a moment to relish her surprise. “I’ve a hanar romance I’ve been saving. _Sheen of the Dawn._ ”

 

Aphelia looked at him incredulously. If it were anyone else, she’d think they were joking. But this was Liam, and he _never_ joked about terrible vids. This one was kind of _obscenely_ terrible, however.  And that was his idea of a date. Damn it. “The uncut version is banned, but it’s just six minutes of iridescence!”

 

It was his turn to look surprised. He looked delighted, as though he was blessed to be able to deliver this news. “Oh, you haven’t seen the subtitled bootleg!”

 

That sent her mind reeling.  “ _Now_ you’re shitting me!”

 

“Am not!”

 

“Show it to me _right now_ , Liam!” She shook his arm fervently.

 

“I thought you _didn’t_ want to get us kicked out of the city?”

 

“Situations change! I’m a Pathfinder, I adapt to changing situations! Besides, it’s just subtitles.”

 

“Oho, there’s no _just_ about these.”

 

“...We’re going to the Tempest. Fifth date right now.”

 

 “Doesn't count as the fifth date, then. More like...Date 4.5?”

 

“To Date 4.5!” Aphelia cried, chugging the rest of the strange concoction.

 

Then, she dragged a cheering Liam across the markets of Aya and back to the docking bay, and she guessed that they dismissed all Angaran concerns of theft and security breach as they about the finer points of bioluminescent pornography.

 

* * *

 

 

Kadara was surprising, again and again, but rarely in a good way. It smelled like a strange mix of piss and sulfur. And that was on the good days. On the days Aphelia felt not-so-lucky, it also smelled of decomposing bodies.

 

The first day they had arrived there had been one of those unlucky days. She had never considered herself a person easily startled or disgusted, but watching Sloane’s men beat people like dogs with a chew toy had made her biotics flare in a way she was still getting used to. She and Liam had to hold each other back, each of them sick and full of rage.

 

It reminded her of the best and the worst of the wards on the Citadel. The well-groomed elite of the Presidium knew so little of what happened in the streets of Zakera ward. Often, it had been horrible, but it was still people’s lives, and, in a way, her life. She and Scott had always felt a strange sense of being in between the Presidium and the Wards. Now here they were in another galaxy, and Kadara was the closest thing to a city she had seen populated by Milky Way species. At some point, these people had had their own first contact with the Angara. Or maybe there were many, smaller first contacts. They built economies, allegiances, pecking orders...while the Nexus would label them all that same moniker  - exile - without nuance.

 

There was some vaguely sweet taste of childhood to the experience of it. It didn’t make her homesick, but rather excited. Things stayed the same across all stars, but never enough to bore her. And so she found that every day in that port she was torn between disgust and exuberance.

 

She started to learn the unspoken laws that existed within the city, watching Vetra and Drack to catch onto body language and mannerisms. On one of the first days there, she watched Drack step in the middle of a sour deal, telling the slimy-looking salarian taking advantage of some newly-arrived human kid that he’d make a nice toothpick. Aphelia bought him a drink after that while the old krogan simply grunted that his reasoning was Umi didn’t like cleaning human blood from the bar. And he respected Umi.

 

“We’re just a ship of bad poker faces,” she said knowingly, catching his bluff. “Gil’s in heaven.”

 

“Hah. You don’t make it to my age without learning how to tell a good lie, kid.”

 

“And I assume all your, uh, extra bits” - Aphelia looked pointedly at his prosthetic arm before she could stop herself -  “are from every _shit-awful_ lie,”

 

Drack laughed, somewhere between a bark and a growl. He slapped her on the back, causing her to nearly choke on her drink. “Ryder, I’m glad no one ever taught you how to shut up.”

 

“Oh, they tried.”

 

He simply grunted, gnarly mouth turning up in a smile. “Sure they did. Not every squishy little human is like you, though. Some of ‘em aren’t gonna last that long after running their mouth on Kadara. Damn pyjaks think they’re varren, but you’ve got the teeth, too.”

 

She clinked her drink against his, amber liquid sloshing around before she took a large gulp and slammed the glass against the counter. There was a long, contented pause. Umi eyed two shifty-looking patrons at a far table who seemed to shrink under her gaze. Someone threw up in the corner behind them. Midafternoon sunlight gave the room a filthy, brownish glow, and for a moment she was almost fond of it.

 

“So, if I’ve got the teeth” she said finally, turning back to the Krogan, “when can I get an appointment with Bone Guy? Get some _real_ teeth for my armor.”

 

* * *

 

 

“...so he said that Bone Guy is in the Krogan colony on _Elaaden_ last he knew, and -”

 

“Damn!” Liam exclaimed from the backseat of the Nomad later that day as she recounted the story. They were slowly scaling one of the sheer cliffs that shot up from the surface like pinpricks. “That’s our next stop then, yeah?”

 

“Yes, but not _just_ because of Bone Guy, Liam.”

 

“A _little bit_ because of Bone Guy,” he suggested, and she could hear the grin in his words.

 

Turning around from the steering wheel for a brief moment, she winked at him. “A little bit because of Bone Guy.”

 

He snorted. “Old Man explain whether it’s a bring-your-own-bones sort of deal?”

 

“Oh shit,” she said, stomping on the breaks for a second in her shock. Pressing with a lead foot onto the gas again, she said “Why didn’t I ask?!?”

 

“Goddess, you two,” Peebee said suddenly from the seat beside Liam. “He’s called _Bone Guy_. Of course he has his own bones, or else he’d just be a tailor. A weirdly flexible with his duties Krogan tailor, but still a tailor.”

 

Aphelia nodded. “You’re a - speedbump! -” she called as they drove over a lone Kett before it even had a chance to fire. Slamming the vehicle into reverse, they jolted over its corpse again, all three of them grunting as they were thrown slightly with the force of it. “You’re a _genius_ , Peebs.”

 

“I try,” she said lightly.

 

“Think you could get some bones for that Remnant bot of yours?” Liam asked, and Aphelia laughed loudly. “Just imagine seeing that rushing at you in a battle. Kett fuckers would think the Remnant _exalted them_.”

 

A pause.

“You know, we have our differences, but that might be the smartest thing you’ve ever said, Liam.” Peebee sounded legitimately impressed.

 

“I try,” he said, mimicking her, and when Aphelia, laughing, glanced into the rearview mirror, she was surprised to see him already looking at her, grinning.

 

           “Hey,” she said suddenly. “If the bones for your bot snapped, would the diagnosis be…osteo- _poc_ -rosis?”

 

Liam cheered. She stomped on the gas with a slight yell and all the grace of a lead-tentacled hanar. Peebee complained loudly, speech punctuated with shrieks, but their laughter was the only sound that stuck in her mind.

 

* * *

 

 

The weeks they spent there pressed forward in such a way. It was the most exciting and exhausting world she had seen yet. And, without even planning or noticing, their interactions seemed to become limited to moments on the field, passing in the hallway, or sitting on the counters in the kitchen together as they wolfed down a meal.

Liam seemed fidgety - more so than usual. Like he hadn’t been able to properly rest since that day on Aya. He was distracted, a datapad always on hand. He talked to himself, too, which she found oddly endearing.

 

She meant to ask about Verand, to make sure she understood everything he was trying to do, and that he understood she was on his side. But she didn’t, as she instead found herself distracted, muttering to herself and SAM as she pondered over datapads and the chaos of the current planet.

 

There were bodies in the sulfur lakes. There were more bodies of poisoned Angara at an outpost. People branded exiles even among the exiles struggled to survive on their own materials. And there was only so much she could do to help. On the one hand, she had purpose, and things to push forward through; but on the other hand, the image of widespread suffering weighed on her heart.

 

Outside of that port, still more responsibilities pulled at her attention. Reports from Eos, Havarl, Voeld, leads on the Turian and Asari Arks, and the web of memory left by her father pulled her in.

 

One night, at her own insistence, she attempted to watch the Elcor _Tempest_ with Liam for date number five. She was determined to spend more time with him, while also feeling obnoxiously stubborn about figuring out his mysterious quote. However, despite her half-yawned statements that she was _not at all_ tired and would be _completely fine_ throughout the full three and a half hours (“who _cares_ that human productions are only two hours, there’s no rushing _art_ ”), she passed out halfway through the first act, her pyjak sleeping on her lap.

 

When she came to somewhere towards the play’s closing, he was asleep beside her, a datapad still clutched in his hand. One of the Elcor onscreen yelled something in the background as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

 

Having learned from their previous night together that he was a fairly deep sleeper,  she gently took the datapad from him and placed it on the crates in front of his couch. Then, she stood up and rummaged around the room, calling the pyjak down from where it sat, digging through a crate,  before pulling out a sleeping bag stacked near the wall - it was one of the Initiative’s standard beddings, a thick black stripe and the simple AI insignia printed boldly across both sides. Unzipping it, she draped it across him and let it fall lazily over his strong shoulders.

 

He moved slightly, making a small noise at the back of his throat. It was so unguarded that part of her wanted to just throw herself on the couch next to him, and they could fall asleep as a messy tangle of limbs.

 

She didn’t, wanting him to have this moment of peace. Instead, she whispered a quick good night before stumbling down the hallway to return to sleep in her own bed.

 

When she woke up again, there was a message waiting for her in her inbox.

 

 

>  
> 
> **Tucked in**
> 
> **To: Aphelia Ryder**
> 
> **From: Liam Kosta**
> 
>  
> 
> **Seeing as it was either you or the pyjak who tucked me in, I figured I should send the message to you since our Little Devil can’t read.**
> 
>   
> 
> 
> **Thank you.**

 

* * *

 

 

On one of her best days on Kadara, she helped an exile reestablish contact with the Nexus and speak to her mother. It was like watching the woman (who she could only guess was much younger than she now looked) transform into a different person. Life filled her eyes wet with tears, and she smiled like she was only then remembering how.

 

Aphelia felt uncharacteristically solemn, lightheaded to a degree that she could only think to awkwardly pat the woman on the back and stumble out into the afternoon sunshine. She breathed in the rotting air and leaned against a railing outside.

 

And then, her brain sent out a lash of pain and a frenzy of images. It was like a small firework coming from her implant. She was used to the sensation now, the slight warping feeling of her father’s eidetic memory triggers, and only acknowledged it with a light touch to her temple.

 

A bang of recollection shook her. It felt oddly comical to imagine herself there, bent over, contemplative and rubbing her forehead. How many times throughout her childhood had her father looked like that, face ashen as he looked galaxies away? It was one of the first images of him that came to mind.

 

All that time, she had thought she would never know the man. And she had made peace with that years ago. She didn’t need to know who Alec Ryder was to know who Aphelia Ryder _is._

 

And yet -

 

“A new memory of your father’s is available for viewing,” SAM’s metered voice chimed from inside her head.

 

“It’s strange how familiar that is to hear now, SAM,” she remarked casually, staring out at hills. They looked like an ocean of green that froze in the middle of a storm with its great swells and clashing peaks.

“How are you feeling?” Cora’s strong voice came from behind her. “It just seems unimaginable.”

 

The other woman came to stand on her left side and joined her looking out over the landscape. Cora was the only member of the crew besides Lexi that had never asked about her hearing, but seemed to have trained since before they met to always position herself on Aphelia’s good side. In the bright sunlight, Cora’s hair seemed to glow white. Some freckles were more prominent on her cheeks  due to the sunlight (and a slight burn was also beginning to pronounce itself on her nose and forehead).

 

“In general, or related to anything in particular?” Aphelia asked casually. She was still learning how to talk to the person who was, if there was any measure of rank anymore, technically her second-in-command.

 

“I mean about your old man,” Cora said bluntly, but with concern. “You just got another one of those ‘memory triggers,’ right?” Before she could question it, Cora clarified, “I recognize the body language.”

 

“Yeah, I did,” Aphelia replied, glancing over at the other woman. “I just-” She paused, considering what it was she wanted to say. “Cora, you knew him better than I did. And that’s not a question, I’m just stating the truth.” She smiled sadly. “There has to be a reason he’s showing me this, right? Me seeing this...it’s clearly something he planned, in case something happened to him.”

 

“You know him better than you think,” she said evenly. “The Alec Ryder I knew had already planned ten steps ahead before you had even considered the first. Guess we’re all still following his trail of breadcrumbs.”

 

“Yeah, it’s a real tragedy that that trait of his didn’t pass down, isn’t it?” Aphelia mused.

 

“Maybe,” Cora said, and she nodded, examining a distant cliffside. “But…” There was an extended pause. “I don’t think Alec would be as adaptable as you are.”

 

Aphelia’s jaw dropped slightly, and she whipped around quickly to examine the other woman. There was the smallest hint of a smile dancing on Cora’s lips, though she still stared out towards something unseen. “Cora, you _flatter_ me.”

 

“I’m actually pretty sure that’s Liam’s job, Pathfinder,” she said wryly.

 

“And now you joke. This is _quite_ a day!” Aphelia grinned.

 

The doors behind them slid open and Jaal emerged, having repaired one of the exiles’ monitors with some of his tinkering. He stood behind them dutifully, seeming to sense that he could be interrupting a serious moment.

 

“I judged you for it too harshly before,” Cora said, looking at her now with all the intensity of her hazel eyes. “But you are your own person, Ryder. Not your father.”

 

“Thank you,” she said, voice low.

 

“But I still believe that there are always things to learn from him. Hell, I think _I’m_ still learning from the man’s ‘last lesson.’”

 

As the memories she had unlocked had strayed closer to her mom’s death, she had grown resistant, wondering if she could establish her own mental blocks that would lock her out of the memories. She had grieved for her mother; reliving it felt like something forbidden. It was like she had dug up a body to ogle it before burying it again.

 

But maybe there was something important in this chance. It had all felt so out of character for her father, so...calculatingly emotional. Then again, just a year before, she would have laughed in anyone’s face if they said Alec would die for her. He was apparently full of surprises. Ten steps ahead.

 

Maybe she would follow those breadcrumbs. Maybe Mom would want her to.

 

* * *

 

 

Another week and a half pressed on, and they had nearly reset the vault on Kadara when Liam knocked on her door at night, face flush will shame. Her mind raced with the hundreds, thousands of possibilities of what could make him look like that.

 

He tried to fake cordiality and small talk, but that only made it more strange. Finally, he just said, “I told you I’d screw it up. And I have.” She ushered him into the wide room and shut the door behind them. It was dark; stars were hardly visible through the blanket of clouds on Kadara.

 

Standing awkwardly in the center of the room, shifting from foot to foot, he told her everything. Verand and her whole team went missing. Who exactly had captured them was an unknown.

 

“Oh my god,” she said. “So we’re going? To find her?”

 

“Was hoping you’d say that,” he said, looking slightly relieved. “Because I...also gave Verand Nexus data and nav points.”

 

“Oh, great.”

 

He explained how no one would help, how no real dialogue was happening for survival. It all came back to outsiders. Verand was one of the only people willing to work together, so he had trusted her with data and tech. She had made good on it, but now...this.

 

And if they didn’t find her, the entire Initiative could be at risk.

 

She wanted to scream. “Liam, why are you telling me - I mean, thank you for telling me - but this is bigger than us! Go straight to Nexus command!”

 

“If they have her info, they have our comms,” he explained. “If the Nexus goes on alert, they’ll know.”

 

She sighed, the anger bubbling down. She crossed her arms across her chest. He was right. Clearly, he had thought this through.

 

“SAM, wake Kallo,” she ordered. “Actually, wake the whole ship. Call them to the conference room. Give them fifteen minutes.”

 

“Yes, Pathfinder,” he intoned.

 

“Thank you,” Liam said.

 

She nodded. “What are we up against?”

 

He explained the situation to her, continuously admitting to his guilt, while also providing hard facts and leads. They were going to the Sephesa system. They had a place to start.

 

He left with a final apology, allowing her to change out of her nightclothes before heading to the meeting room. She sat on the edge of her bed for a minute, collecting her thoughts and her anger and understanding together, to try to understand it.

 

While he may have made risky choices, he had thought them through. She could respect that. It was better than sending her to scan a vendor’s goods on Aya just days after they had gotten permission to enter the city.

 

And he had asked for Bradley’s help. He was still trying to make everything a team effort. She wondered if she would have done the same.

 

* * *

 

 

Somehow, even the villains Liam conjured up even managed to be straight out of a bad action vid. A Kett ship piloted by the most cartoonish Roekaar who tried to blow them out of an airlock was something she _wished_ she had made up, it was that good. The gravity had shifted on them mid-fight, they shot the console on their cartoon villain, and reinforcements had arrived from their proud little settlement. It was as if Liam’s optimism had called forth the ending to the story that it deserved.

 

When the mission was over, they debriefed quickly from the bridge of the Tempest. They bade goodbye and endless thanks to Bradley and everyone of Prodromos. It felt like a whole new chapter for Andromeda had been opened.

 

Liam clapped her on her shoulder and thanked her again. She had a brief check in with Kallo and Suvi, then turned on her heel towards his retreating figure. He was halfway down the suspended walkway when she called out his name.

 

He stopped, and she charged at him, launching herself forth for a hug. However, she instead found herself lifted off of her feet as he spun her around until they both stumbled back, dizzy still from all the inversions of gravity.

 

There would be more serious conversations, but for now they laughed and laughed, at nothing in particular, awash in the glow of the most unlikely of successes.

 

* * *

 

 

Serious conversations came after they had both eaten and showered. Her hair was still tied up in a towel when she sought him out in storage. He leapt up from the couch when she entered, and began immediately stumbling over his words.

 

He started countering as though she had spoken. He strode back and forth, gesticulating as he reasoned through all the points of the day. She sat down on the couch and watched him.

 

Finally, she said “We did good.”

 

That stopped him in his tracks. “Wait, what?”

 

“I think you’ve already learned your lesson about being more careful, and when to take risks. I mean, you just had a full conversation with a fake me about it.” She smiled gently, and motioned for him to sit next to her. He did. “But we also secured friendships today. I think that’s important.”

 

“That’s what I’ve been trying to do this whole time,” he said. “Finally it looks like people are willing. And did you hear what Augie said? Some Angara might be settling on Prodromos!”

 

“Yeah! That’s the best news I’ve heard recently.” She paused and stood up again, walking towards the door. “I’ve got to record an audio log to tell Scott all about this while it’s still fresh in my mind. But...thank you, Liam. And don’t ever fucking do that again.”

 

That got a laugh from him. “Duly noted, Pathfinder.”

 

* * *

 

 

Things began to return to their normal again after that. They arrived back at Kadara, where tensions between the Collective and the Outcasts were rising ever higher. Reyes Vidal requested her help again. And there was one monolith left before they could reset the vault.

 

She and Liam fell quickly back into their flirtation. Whenever he was by her side on the field, she felt better. Happier.

 

When they reset the vault, it had become an unsaid agreement that they would ride the gravity wells together. It never stopped feeling like a dream.

 

He was a constant in her life. One that she sometimes felt angry at, and sometimes wanted to do anything to make him laugh.

 

When Reyes walked out of the shadows and revealed himself as the Charlatan, and Sloane lay dead in front of her, she found herself wanting to talk only to Liam about the pit in her stomach from the deception of it all. And she did later that night, asking him to sleep in her bed again, she was so shaken by it.

 

He was such a constant in her life, her Andromeda definition of normal, that she sometimes considered him in terms of the word “love.”

 

And that felt silly, foolish, even as they faced each other under the covers of her bed and she repeated increasingly ridiculous lines of Shakespeare at him for their guessing game now, finally giggling out “What, you egg!”

 

* * *

 

 

On one of their last days on Kadara, they were given a mission through their new outpost about tracking some beast called “Old Skinner.”

 

“Oh wow, I wonder what that could be,” she said, voice flat.

 

When she arrived in the Nomad with Liam, Cora, and Peebee at the approximate coordinates of Old Skinner, the  still-boiling water stretched thin across the grey rock floor of the basin, and she heard a distant thud. Sure enough, the twisting, writhing frame of the Architect had landed with a crash just over the crest of the nearest hill.

 

“Hate it when I’m right,” she said, stomping on the gas to mount the hill and get them within fighting distance of the creature.

 

The fight was long. This Architect was more flighty than the previous ones they had fought. Without any sort of warning, it would rocket off before landing some distance away on another cliff. It was draining to simply follow the thing, staying in close enough range to do damage but far enough away to not get blasted to hell themselves.

 

Cora got clipped on the leg by one of its summoned Assemblers, and had to stay low. Peebee was more reckless, but was somehow avoiding getting hit. She was practically panting orders, sweating from the humidity of the hot springs in mid afternoon sun. The vault may have balanced out the sulfur levels, but the planet still felt like a sauna.

 

Finally, after having gotten their own hard punches in on the Architect’s “head”, they wound up on some uneven terrain, the tentacles of the creature like the enormous metal claws of a beast that refused to let go of its roost.

 

“Think that’s the last of it’s creepy little offspring,” Liam intoned over the comms, launching at a final Assembler with both omni blades bared. “Well, now it is.”

 

“Aim for the legs!” Cora called from behind one of the Remnant blocks that protruded out of the dirt, pulsing dully.

 

As Peebee and Liam both aimed at one of the legs, the turned her focus to another and charged an Overload. Arm vibrating violently, she released it, and then watched the creature’s leg seize up suddenly, whipping through the air with hundreds of small, sharp snapping sounds.

 

“The head, the head, the head, the head!” She yelled frantically, grunting as she pulled herself up over one of the blocks. Standing on the surface and looking repeatedly from her own position to the head some hundred feet above her, an idea began to form in her mind.

 

She balled her right hand into a fist and watched it glow so brilliant a blue it was almost white.

 

“Cora, Peebee,” she said. “Throw me at the head.”

 

“Come again?” Peebee grunted.

 

“My comm - cut - out,” Cora agreed, panting.

 

“Remember that Rylkor on Havarl?” She was speaking as frantically as possible, afraid they would lose their chance. “We caught it in a biotic Pull together - same thing, but I’m the Rylkor, and instead of a Pull -- Throw!”

 

She leapt off the pedestal, triggering her jump jets and bolstering the movement with her own biotics.

 

“Wait, _what_ -” Liam yelled somewhere in her periphery.

 

Rather than a response, what came out of her throat was a yell, feral and incoherent as she channeled her energy into her biotics. Then, outside of her control, she was hurtling further upwards, as if some hook had grabbed her by the middle and tossed her into the sky.

 

“ -yder, fly!” She heard Peebee’s voice through the comms. Then, the there commotion of all three party members yelling at once, overloading the comms.

 

The land raced beneath her in a stream of colors, and the teetering metal monster grew larger and larger before her. Its equivalent of a mouth opened and closed angrily, glowing a fatal red. Its vulnerable period was almost over...and she might have overshot the distance.

 

She began to think this was a bad idea.

 

Triggering her jump jets in pure desperation, she forced herself harshly to the left and collided with one of its headpieces.

 

The air was knocked out of her, but she remained conscious enough to note her descent. Breathing rapidly, she rocketed up once more and clutched at one of the maw’s many lips. Grasping a secure handhold, she caught a glimpse of the ground, a great blur of pinks and greys and blues beneath her. Not letting herself focus on that, she threw herself upwards and into the mouth.

 

It bucked, like she was just a bothersome fly. Slamming into the topmost piece of its mouth, she threw her limbs out for any sort of handhold that she could get. Sliding down as the Architect stabilized, she miraculously found herself standing again.

 

Disoriented, her head throbbing, she felt a desperate rage building inside of her. There was no time to waste. The biotics surged, from the back of her head to every inch of her body, crackling and popping as she took an almighty leap forward and threw every bit of energy that remained in her body into her fist.

 

It wasn’t a punch so much as a full body slam, so powerful her own vision blacked out as she half-stumbled, half-flew backwards from it. As it came back to her in spots, she saw the Architect’s own lights begin to flicker and phase out. The entire machine suddenly swayed, but her body was slow to catch up to the alarm that her mind was sensing.

 

Scrambling to her feet, the metal beneath her vibrating oddly, she ran to the edge of its head and jumped off, but found her jump jet malfunctioning. She struggled to find her voice.  “Help” was all that came out, as she plummeted, faster and faster, and she flashed back to Habitat Seven and the fall that had broken her helmet, and ultimately cost Alec’s life.

 

She summoned all the strength left to her, what felt like her own life force, into her biotics as her vision went black again and she imagined the ground rushing up to break her. And yet, the fall seemed to be lessening, to be nothing at all, as she finally lost control, her mind slipping away.

 

* * *

 

 

Her senses came back to her slowly, as if each one needed to be reminded to wake up. First was pain, dull but consistent in what felt like every part of her body. There was taste, her mouth stale and rotting. The touch of stiff and sterile bedsheets over her. The tinny ringing sound in her good ear. And everything smelling of sanitizer. Willing her eyes open, the med bay of the Tempest swam in and out of her vision. Everything was blurs of colors. Blinking furiously, some edges began to form, but nothing with clarity yet.

 

Her mind was full of fractals of screaming, blue flares, and the feeling of empty lungs. Gasping in a deep breath involuntarily, she tried to piece together what was real and what was dreamed.  
  
Based on the aches in her body, she guessed that she really had launched herself at an Architect. Nothing felt broken, and she was breathing fine, so she gave herself credit for that.

 

“Hello, Pathfinder,” SAM’s voice said in her mind. “It’s good to have you back.”

 

She didn’t want to sit there and face Lexi’s probing and everyone’s questions and anger and sympathy. She wanted to be fighting again.

 

Sitting up suddenly and groaning, she heard a wordless exclamation beside her. Falling back slightly until she found a balance on her propped up elbows, she turned to see Liam sitting bolt upright in a chair beside the bed. Her heart sunk with guilt, wondering how long he had been there.

 

“You’re alright!” He said, relieved. He looked flushed, tired. “I...are you alright? Should I call Lexi?”

 

“I’m okay, I think. Please don’t get Lexi. Not yet.” she smiled, pushing herself back to sit against the wall. Her vision was clearing up. “Deja vu...waking up with you sitting there.”

 

“Stop doing that,” he said. “That almost dying thing.”

 

She groaned. “You’re telling me.” The concern in his eyes was near disarming. She lowered her gaze. “I’m sorry.”

 

He took her hand then, and held it in both of his own. “Scared the hell out of me. I didn’t think you were serious, and then not being able to help...I hate that.”

 

She squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “How long was I out? What happened?”

 

“First of all, it was badass,” he said. “Even I have to admit that. Never do it again, though. So after you blew the damn thing up and jumped from fifty meters above the ground, your biotics slowed you down some. Then Cora and Peebee caught you, like a Biotics safety net. Hit the ground feather light. It was amazing.”

 

“Wow,” she said, considering. “I owe them, well, my life probably.”

 

“Yeah, Doc said you had no apparent injuries besides a slight concussion.  You passed out because you were just so exhausted. It’s a goddamn miracle, you ask me. You’ve been out for maybe six hours.”

 

“God, that’s _awesome,_ ” she said, closing her eyes for a moment. Then, she snapped them open, making a realization. “Wait - how did you all get SAM to interface with the Architect?”

 

“You - oh shit, you don’t remember,” he said. “You were still slightly conscious when you hit the ground. We, uh, carried you to the head, and you were able to finish before _actually_ passing out.”

 

“Oh.” She nodded, considering everything. “Yeah, I am a badass.” She sighed. “A badass who hopes you can forgive her.”

 

“None of that,” he said, squeezing her hand. “ I just worry. Stop being so damn reckless.”

 

“Something I’ve learned recently,” she said slowly, “is that we are both incredibly reckless, but even more _lucky._ ” Her stomach churned with discomfort. Her words tasted bitter. “And - I don’t know - we drive each other _crazy_ when we pull this stuff, even though your big stunts are mostly altruistic, and mine are...impulsive, at best.”

 

“You’re a thrill-seeker. It’s part of what makes you amazing,” he said.

 

At that, her mouth turned slightly upwards. “I’m not going to change. And I wouldn’t want you to. It’s part of what makes _you_ amazing.”

 

“Guess we’re at a bit of an impasse, then.”

 

“Cause we’re also both incredibly stubborn,” she smirked. “But...I think I could try to be more discerning. Think for maybe a second before I jump.”

 

“Me, too,” he agreed.

 

“Fair warning: I will probably still jump,” she teased, voice cracking slightly.

 

“Wouldn’t expect anything else,” he grinned.

 

* * *

 

 

Lexi came bustling in shortly after that, full of questions and inspections that even she deemed unnecessary. Liam sat beside her the whole time, making her laugh so hard that at multiple points the doctor shushed him.

 

Aphelia reluctantly agreed to stay in the med bay overnight. Liam brought back some of the pillows from her bed, and she sunk into them gratefully. All the lights except the one above her bed were dimmed, so the two of them were highlighted in their own pool of light.

 

“Would you read me a story?” she asked quietly.

 

“Sounds like the ideal date six,” he said, retrieving his datapad. “What do you have in mind?”

 

“ _The Tempest_ ,” she said with a smirk. He looked up from the datapad to meet her eyes.

 

“Every character?” he asked.

 

“I expect a different voice for each one.”

 

He shook his head, trying to hide his smile. After a moment of searching, he cleared his throat and began, “Set the scene: 'A tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard.’ Then some guys just named ‘Master’ and ‘Boatswain’ come on…”

 

Just like when they tried the Elcor production, she fell asleep very quickly into the plot. However, as the opening of the story depicted a ship stuck in a storm, thrashed around in an unknown place, she couldn’t help but think of that first day in Andromeda, back when they first met, and their harsh encounter with the Scourge.

 

* * *

 

 

She recovered quickly. As Liam had told her, her injuries were only surface level. It was only a couple days before her full body aches were mostly gone.

 

She had thanked Cora and Peebee separately for saving her. Both of them were gracious in their own ways, just relieved to see her okay, and impressed at her resilience.

 

They docked at the Nexus for a few days, and she was able to visit Scott for the first time in a few weeks. There was no significant change, but it was still good to see his face, no matter how pale and thin it had become.

 

When Scott would eventually wake up (because he _had to_ ), she wondered what he would say of her. It was subtle, but she carried herself differently now; what would he think of this person she was? And, more importantly, who would _he_ be?

 

In SAM node, she relived through her father’s eyes the memory of a time - just a few years before - when her mother had assembled them together as a family again. In that memory, Scott seemed more defiant to her father than she had ever remembered him being. Had time softened her memory of him? Had her father’s own perceptions colored the event differently? She could not know. And she hated it.

 

But she tried to open herself up to the experience, as Cora had told her. It was deeply uncomfortable, but she let herself think and feel her way through the experiences. It was cracking her open enough to bleed again, but maybe she needed to.

 

* * *

 

 

Liam told her that he had another surprise -- it was a good one this time, he promised. Just give him the word, and it would be waiting at Prodromos. No need for armoring up. He was brimming with pride when he said it. Maybe, after the fiasco with Verand, real change _was_ happening.

 

The night before arriving at the colony, she had picked up _The Tempest_ again, intrigued by the story that she had now seen the beginning of twice. The language was over-complicated, archaic, but some lines just stood out even through all the centuries.

 

She was in Act 4, Scene 1 when she read one such line. Several memories seemed to strike her upside the head as she laid there, datapad in hand and eyes widening almost comically.

 

There it was, staring right at her in a blocky text. The feeling of weightlessness in a gravity well on a frozen planet...holding the person that she -

 

She got him.

 

Now she needed her own words.

 

* * *

 

 

She strode down the Tempest walkway the next day into the midday sun of Eos. It was a clear sky, looking impossibly blue above them. There was a feeling of exposure without her weapons there, but it was such a rare moment of liberation to not need them at all.

 

The rest of the crew joined them at Liam’s insistence, and the colonists were already buzzing about in the flat land beside their settlement. Lines were being drawn in the dirt that resembled...a court?

 

Liam himself swept into view, kicking a soccer ball. He was smiling, bouncing between various people of all species (including Angara, she noted with a smile) and offering words of welcome and encouragement. She sprinted forward to help a couple of colonists lift a goal post.

 

As they organized teams and explained the rules to all those less familiar with the game, she counted heads. There were Tempest crew members mixed with Angara mixed with damn near everyone she had met in Prodromos. They were all here to just have fun. And Liam had brought them together.

 

After the games began, she found herself on the sidelines with him. They were standing a couple feet apart, and she could feel something in the air between them. He was beaming, completely in his element, elated and commenting on different plays. He told her about how he used to organize these games for refugees back with Crisis Response, but it meant something more to him now. Something so simple could mean so much now.

 

She understood exactly what he meant. And she was in awe of him. It stuck her just how deeply she meant all the feelings that she had for him.

 

“It’s wonderful how you never stopped trying to build your bridge,” she told him.

 

“Feels like I finally _stopped_ trying too hard,” he admitted with a small smile.

  
  
On the field, an Angara helped an Asari up after a foul play, both of them looking sheepish, he joked with a smirk that it was “no charge for matchmaking.”

 

That seemed to open something between them. He looked at her briefly, and then back out to the field.

 

“I couldn’t do any of this without you,” he said softly.

 

“You’re sweet, Kosta,” she said offhandedly, not wanting to read too deeply.

 

“No, I mean it.” He was trying to play to it cool. “We’re the same about a lot of things...so what about us?”

 

Just like that. Suddenly, she was weightless, realizing that they might have both reached their own conclusions at the exact same time. She glanced over at him, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks.

 

“Fun’s fun,” he continued. “It’s okay if it’s just ‘we used to flirt.’ But if you’re serious -”

 

“I figured out your Shakespeare line,” she blurted out, and he turned away from the game fully to face her, intrigued. She cleared her throat, shifting back and forth on her feet, knowing this was _it_. “But I’m not going to tell it to you. Instead, I...have a quote for you. Different play. ‘ _I cannot heave my heart into my mouth_.’”

 

She breathed deeply, staring somewhere past him, body alive with nervous energy. “But I don’t want to just take anyone else’s words - this is bigger than that - so I’m going to have to try with my own.” Stealing a glance at him, she saw that he was looking at her curiously, brown eyes bright with hope.

 

“I’m sorry for interrupting and - this has a point, trust me. So I was sitting there last night, actually reading all of _The Tempest_ for you, and I realized how little this quote itself matters compared to my own want to - I don’t know, find out what about it appealed to you. Or to just spend time guessing with you.” She laughed. “It just all kept coming back to you.”

 

It felt like everything was just going to come pouring out of her. “And god, I’ve never been one for words or declarations, or damn soliloquies _._ But now I’m rambling, Liam. I’m rambling trying to heave my heart into my mouth.”

 

A whistle was blown. There was a foul play yet again, and a couple excited yells filled her own silence as she kicked up the dirt at her feet. Finally, she met his eyes again, warm and patient on her face.

 

“One of the last things my mother ever said to me was that I should fall in love.” He was suddenly much less than a foot apart from her, and she didn’t know which of them had moved or if both of them had.  “At least once.”

 

“You haven’t really talked about your mum before,” he commented softly.

 

“Yeah, well, bit of a moodkiller.” She laughed again. “Naturally, I didn’t listen. Part of me was scared. Thought Mom was being sentimental and...Whatever. Thing is, I wasn’t afraid of falling in love - I mean, what is this, a bad vid? I think...I was most afraid of _forcing_ it. That would be _horrible,_ wouldn’t it? _”_

 

She shook her head and stuck an accusatory finger out at him. “And...I’m only going to say this once, so I hope you’re listening closely. Get all your tape recorders ready or whatever. Well, regardless you have…” she turned her gaze over the game beside them, “about fifty witnesses right now, give or take. Is this lighting good?”

 

“It’s perfect,” Liam said without a hint of sarcasm.

 

He was grinning, and she was so relieved that he seemed to be able to follow this strange monologue of hers. She cleared her throat again, refocusing herself. “What I have learned in these past few months, Liam Kosta, is that I never have to force things with you. And it turns out my mother was right. Except…”

 

After a brief moment of indecision of whether or not to go on, she couldn’t stop herself from grinning, and found that answer enough. “I don’t think I want to ‘at least’ once.”

 

“Yeah?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper.

 

“Yeah. I mean- I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty content with this once, and I think I’d like to just...keep falling with you, this-”

 

“Aphelia,” he said, voice stronger now.

 

“Liam,” she repeated. And his hand was suddenly on her cheek as he closed what was left of the distance between them.

 

“I’m gonna kiss you now,” he said.

 

“Oh good,” she breathed, pushing herself up onto the tips of her toes as the end of the word was cut off by his mouth on hers.

 

This one felt better than all the rest -- all their awkward, messy kisses. The sunlight hot on their skin rather than the tear stained night on Voeld was something she could get used to. This kiss promised more like it.

 

She pulled him down to her, the stubble of his cheeks rough against her palms. After a long while with only this, the warmth of the sun and him, she backed out for just a second, to meet his eyes and smile.

 

“Oooh!” a voice she recognized as Peebee’s cried, followed by a short burst of laughter. There was the sound of the ball being hit. They both turned to look, and saw that the game was only being half-played. Many had stopped to look, some more obviously than others.

 

“I finally beat Gil in a bet!” Suvi called from across the pitch, waving.

 

Aphelia removed a hand from his face to wave back awkwardly. Turning back to Liam, amused and embarrassed, she found only a gentle fondness in his eyes. He was untroubled, even delighted, at all of this.

 

Placing her hand on his chest, still breathing somewhat erratically, she felt a cheeky grin of her own forming, tongue between her teeth.

 

“I think…” she said in a low whisper, “we should join the game soon. And I’m going to kick your ass.”

 

“No arguments there,” he chuckled, but his embrace seemed only to tighten around her.

 

“But,” she said sharply, “we should give them a show first, right?”

 

“Oh yeah,” he said, pulling her smoothly into a dip before kissing her again, and the field erupted into a series of cheers.

 

* * *

 

When the game was over, most of Prodromos seemed to have wandered to the field in a strange and wonderful moment of community. They were all there, sweating and panting in the lazy evening sun. Her tank top was dirt stained and her shoulders were starting to redden with a burn, but she couldn’t stop grinning.

 

No one seemed to want to work, not quite yet. Even Hainly had put down her datapad, her short hair affectionately ruffled by an Asari she was now chatting away with. August Bradley was smiling, a look of pride on his face as he surveyed the intermingling groups of people. They made eye contact, and he nodded at her.

 

She wandered over to one of the agriculture buildings and found a water spigot. Twisting the handle, water sputtered out with a squeak. Leaning over, she gathered the water, lukewarm but refreshing all the same, in her hands and splashed her face repeatedly.

 

Sensing someone behind her, she wheeled around, ready to make some sort of respectable small talk. However, as water dripped from her chin and bangs, she met a very welcome sight.

 

“Hey, pretty woman,” Liam said, leaning against the wall beside her. “Come here often?”

 

She rolled her eyes, but played along. “As much as I can. But I think we’re all a bit new ‘round these parts.” Wiping the back of her hand against her mouth, she added in a lower voice, “What do you say we get out of here?”

 

“I’d fancy that,” he said, leaning away from the wall and offering his hand. “How about our spot on the cliffs?”

 

 _Our spot._ It caught her off guard, but as it settled on her, it felt right. That place, months ago, where he had surprised her (it had not been the first nor would it be the last time he would do that), where she had first kissed him, chastely and absentmindedly, where she was full of a roaming rage and confusion and he had impersonated an Elcor to make her laugh. Of course it was their spot.

 

“Yeah, our spot,” she said, taking his hand, “that is, if you can climb better than you play ball.”

 

“Ouch,” he groaned sarcastically. Then, he released her hand and took off running, calling over his shoulder, “Race you!”

 

With a shout, she followed after him, racing towards the walls of the canyon that housed Prodromos.

 

* * *

 

 

They settled down later, with only slightly scraped knees, and the earth beneath them was still warm to the touch, holding onto the memory of the day.

 

The sun, held between the cradle of the cliffs, did not feel like something was ending. It threw liquid gold upwards to rest among the stars that were just beginning to emerge above them, and she wanted to count them all.

  
  
She leaned her head against Liam's shoulder, and heard him hum slightly in contentment. She wanted to ask him to name every new constellation with her. Maybe the Angara had some names already. Maybe there were even multiple stories among them. There were so many questions. But they could be asked later.  

  
  
She wanted to go to the worlds that lived by the light of those distant stars. Then, they could name the pictures created by the one she now called sun here on Eos. They could chase every sunset, on every world in Andromeda. Maybe even the sunrises if she woke up early enough.

  
  
The idea settled in her easily, softly in the mellow light. Her mind teemed with big and little thoughts. But right now, they had this sunset. This one sunset on a cloudless night on their first settlement in another galaxy. In truth, the sunset was unremarkable, probably less stunning than the one they had watched from just a few meters over so many months before. And yet, as she wrapped her arms around his middle, and his own rested comfortingly around her shoulders, she thought that she wouldn't replace it for anything.

  
  
That first sunset over Prodromos had felt like the first one she had ever seen in her life. Now, it was something steady, a river of molten pinks and purples that overflowed into the black. It was the promise, returning like waves, of a love affair built on friendship, built on laughter.

  
  
"That one, right there" Liam said suddenly. Lifting her head, she turned to him. The last of the gold had come to rest delicately on his features, and the goofy grin that had returned to his face. His other arm was outstretched, pointing somewhere above them.

  
  
Confused, she looked at the sky, squinting and wondering if she missed something before turning back to inspect him quizzically.. "What's-"

  
  
"The star right above that radio dish, straight up, d'you see it?" He asked.

  
  
"Yes..." She said, trying to get a read on him.

  
  
"No you don't, you're looking at me."

  
  
"It's a good view," she teased, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

  
  
"You're..." He paused for a moment, flustered. He smiled sheepishly before something about his face became more sure. “Bet it's not as good as mine,” he said, drawing his hand to her face instead.

 

Slowly, he kissed her jaw, right below the scarring by her bad ear, and she was suddenly glad she was not standing as her knees felt weak.  “And I bet it's not,” she whispered with a giggle.

 

“The stars are jealous because I’ve got the best view in the galaxy - _two_ galaxies - “ he let the words linger, dripping like honey - and, hell, if she wanted to be Greek about it since this was _Eos_ , it was like _ambrosia_ \- thickly sweet in the air between their slightly parted lips “- right here.”

 

Just as their lips touched, she pulled back, pushing him playfully as she exclaimed, “The stars, Romeo!”

 

Liam took a moment to recover, eyes opening slowly as he cleared his throat. Then, it was like a gear shifted and he was himself again; a cheeky grin split his face in the greys of the dusk. “Y’keep doing that. Am I ever gonna get to finish kissing you?”

 

“Oh, trust me, Kosta,” she said, voice low, “when we get back to the ship, you’re going to have trouble keeping me _off of you._ ”

 

He cocked his head ever so slightly and he seemed to stop breathing for just a moment. His eyes were warm, never leaving hers, but excitement sparked behind them.  “Following your lead, then, Pathfinder.”

 

He gave a small, breathy laugh, and she wondered if they’d even make it past the airlock. “Good.” Finally tearing her gaze back towards the sky, she swallowed and said, “The stars?”

 

“Right!” More and more pinpricks of light poked through the grey-black night that settled gently over the planet. “Not the brightest one out there anymore, but there’s one right above the radio dish. There are three more that make kind of a line shooting up.”

 

Sure enough, there they were. The third star up was brighter - closer? - than the others, and they formed a remarkably straight line. “Oh, yeah!”

 

“Looks like Orion’s Belt, yeah?”

 

The only time she could remember seeing that constellation was nearly a decade ago now. Alec had pointed it out to her and Scott. Her brother had had to explain it again later so she understood what the constellation was supposed to look like (which end was his _head?_ ). Now, she found herself trying to piece together the warrior’s raised arms in the Andromeda sky.

 

Of course, they weren’t there. And that was okay. “Yeah,” she said. “I see it.”

 

“Now this part’s tricky,” he said. She glanced over at him, leaning forward slightly, as if she could bring the skies closer to her. “‘Cause the stars have gone on and multiplied in the last five minutes, but there’s another bright one, across from the top two of the other row.” She nodded, spotting it. “Connect the top of Orion’s Belt to that one, and back over to it.”

 

“Like a big letter P?” she asked.

 

“Getting ahead of the game, Aphelia,” he chuckled. “From there, you drag it out all the way to that other star, below all the rest, d’you see?”

 

“Yes…”

 

He turned back to her, looking proud of himself. “Not a big letter P, but a big letter _R._ For Ryder.”

 

She shoved him again, then looked down at her lap, grinning. “You _dork,_ ” she laughed.

 

“Didn’t I say last it time we were here: Ryder’s the goddess of Andromeda sunsets?” Liam’s hand was light on her lower back. “There you are - right after the sunset.”

 

“You _absolute_ dork,” she repeated, rubbing her face in her hands to hide her grin. Then, she turned to him and looked at him challengingly. “Two can play at that game,” she said, touching his cheek briefly. “And no fancy little loops in drawing the constellation, either.”

 

Pointing towards the cluster of stars again, she explained, “Two straight lines from your Orion’s Belt over there, pointing to each star.” Grinning at him, she said, “ _K for Kosta._ ”

 

“Well played,” he said softly. “Guess you’re stuck with me.”

 

She rested her head against his shoulder again. “You’re stuck with me, too. It’s written in the stars, you know.”

 

“Kosta and Ryder over Eos,” he said it broadly, as if announcing it to the settlement beneath them. Lowering his voice, he added, “Let’s see where else.”

 

“Mmm,” she said, closing her eyes as she felt the swell of his breath. “Didn’t they tell kids back on Earth to wish on stars?”

 

A chuckle. He lightly pressed a kiss in the tangle of her sweat-streaked hair. “Bit fairytale, but yeah. I used to.”

 

“I used to look out all the observation windows I could find on the Citadel and just dream. And now…” She kissed the soft skin of his neck before continuing on.

 

“Now we’re making things happen?” he offered.

 

She savored the stillness, something she so rarely appreciated. Prodromos seemed to have replaced the sun, glowing bluish gold beneath them. Distant laughter wafted up from the groups of people down below who were just _living_ for once. Their feet knocked into each other’s lazily.

 

“Now…” she felt herself grinning again, knowing she had gotten it. But she was too happy to try to pull off an Elcor voice.

 

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, once again.
> 
> May the Andromeda Initiative live on in all of us <3
> 
> (And whether you like it or not, this has not been the last of Aphelia Ryder)


End file.
